
Class 
Book. 



in_^ 



n. 



Gppigirtl^?.. 



CDEmiGlfT SESHSIC 



THE "CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

A Realistic Psychology 



BY 

ROBERT CHENAULT GIVLER, Ph. D. 

Instructor in Psychology 

in the 
University of Washington 




iiii 

OCPAtTMEir OF PRINTING. UNIVERSITY OF WASNINGTOI 
SEATTLE 



^"^u 






COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR 



iJ-'S 



SEP 20 1915 



©CI.A410516 
HD'I I 



DEDICATED 

TO ALL THOSE NOT YET BEDEVILED 

BY THE DOCTRINE 

OF 

HARD ATOMS AND SOFT SOULS, 

BUT WRITTEN 
FOR THE OTHERS 



INTRODUCTION 

Memories of Aristotle, together with the 
latest popular information about the nerves, 
make up the bulk of the usual text-books in 
psychology. Faculty psychology is still with 
us, however much we may have renounced it 
in our sane and critical moments; our lan- 
guage flows on by momentum as it did of yore, 
and the old nouns still call seductively. For in 
the midst of our revolt against substantialism, 
we know not yet how to speak in a constructive 
manner. I am convinced that no pussy-foot 
departures from this type of psychology will 
render adequate service to the matter involved, 
and I mean, furthermore, that these pages shall 
bear witness of that conviction. Even in some 
of the better universities of this country there 
is a great discrepancy between the psychology 
verbally taught in the lectures, and that which 
the student reads in the assigned references. 
Even the usual book on the subject is a popular 
phrasing of the enjoyable lecture material of 
the author's previous years, and not that psy- 
chology which represents the best of his pres- 
ent estimate of the subject. The ways of men 

i 



INTRODUCTION 

seem to be so incurably pragmatic, that it is dan- 
gerous to publish the untried. 

I offer this outline of a realistic program for 
psychology as something but partly tried. By 
realistic I mean that mind is treated as some- 
thing observable, something mentionable in all 
of its phases, as well as in its last analysis. 
There will not be urged any non possumus inteU 
legere at the close of the book, however many 
special matters must be left untouched for lack 
of space. The claim here made is that mind, 
soul, thought, consciousness, and all other terms 
referring to personality, are in no need of being 
interpreted by way of Paddock, but rather that 
they mean things which can be discussed and 
understood by any one so disposed. Psychol- 
ogy is a natural science, — that is, it requires no 
concept of trans-empirical things to deal with it 
exhaustively. This will heartily displease a 
host of readers, and those who "imagine there 
must be the indefinite something in the mys- 
sterious all this" will not be enthusiastic about 
the ideas hereinafter to be presented. 

There are two ever-recurring items in this 
book to which signal attention may be called. 
The one is the special form of analysis used, and 
the other is the continual reference to deep- 
seated errors in popular psychology. For both 

11 



INTRODUCTION 

of these characteristic attitudes I am glad to 
acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor Ed- 
win B. Holt, of Harvard University. His "Con- 
cept of Consciousness," from which I have un- 
sparingly quoted in these pages, may be said to 
have furnished the foundation upon which this 
whole structure has been laid. The title of this 
book itself is one of his keenest phrases. I am 
not sure that he will acknowledge the whole pro- 
gram employed herein as deducible from real- 
istic premises, but I feel sure that many com- 
mon parts exist between his exposition of real- 
ism and mine. 

Either logic or flapdoodle. This is the thesis 
defended in this book with regard to the anal- 
ysis of mind. If one is to speak at all about 
any matter, let him first of all be clear and de- 
finitive. Fusion and synthesis come fast enough 
to undo the work of separating things into their 
elements for the sake of a clear comprehension 
of them. For the business of speaking in gen- 
eral about matters that are particular is not 
only avoiding the issue, but it is even a tacit 
attempt to traduce the factual status of the 
terms involved. In following this scheme, the 
student will find a bit of difficult reading here 
and there. Nevertheless, the ultimate grounds 
of logic are not only what every vigorous stu- 

iii 



INTRODUCTION 

dent deserves to know, but that which he 
straightway asks to have exhibited to him as 
well. This method may be altogether too am- 
bitious, but if logical treatment cannot be em- 
ployed in psychology, we had better not talk of 
a science of human consciousness. 

For the general polemical tone of this book 
no apology would be sincere. Students come 
into psychology with all sorts of quaint notions 
about themselves, which only a wholesale, im- 
mediate house-cleaning will suffice to eliminate. 
Nothing is of so much benefit to a man as to 
realize once in a while that he has been going 
by momentum rather than by initiative, and a 
course in psychology is scarcely beneficial if it 
does not pluck one clean from his worst ruts. 
In fact, the writing of this book is designed to 
stimulate to that end rather than to perpetuate 
drowsiness. The reader is hereby assured that 
all of the notions combated in these pages are 
combated in a manner specifically meant. As 
is well known, realists do not usually have the 
reputation of apologizing for their directness, 
and if they are wrong, no one need hesitatingly 
whisper back the verdict of error. 

As a last special item to be mentioned, this 
book is not a behavioristic psychology, however 
much the words "organism" and "function" may 

iv 



INTRODUCTION 

appear in it. As I understand it, behaviorism 
is a theory of the criteria of mind, and not a 
system that can be substituted for psychology. 
It is rather a thesis defending the notion of 
continuity in the animal kingdom, — something, 
to be sure, no realist would sanely controvert, — 
and upon inspection, its chief motive turns out 
to be an animism with the "anima" left out. It 
is not an exhaustive study of even the behaviors 
of the organisms whose tropisms it records. 
This book is a realistic program for psychology 
and thereby holds that the environment is al- 
ways to be kept in view along with whatever 
the organism may be internally or externally 
accomplishing upon it. 

Not all has been accomplished, however, 
that was in the original plan. As a text-book 
it is full of gaps. But, inasmuch as it was writ- 
ten solely for use in my own classes, and is to 
be supplemented by lectures to fill in these 
gaps, only the general plan is offered for crit- 
icism to the general reader. Few signally acute 
experiments have been cited, and those are rep- 
resentative rather than exhaustive reckonings 
with the data involved. The empirical status of 
mind is the central item of this book, as well 
as the continual warnings against mysticism 



INTRODUCTION 

and sentimentality in regard to the science of 
psychology. 

The bibliography included in this book has 
been devised for elementary students who do 
not readily read French or German. It contains 
but few references, and these few are selected 
with a view to supporting rather than inhibiting 
the theses contained in the text. 

In the preparation of this book for the press 
I have been assisted in various ways by those 
to whom this public thanks is due. To my col- 
league, Dr. E. R. Guthrie, I am indebted for very 
helpful hints as to some of the logical matters 
involved in the first two chapters; to Margaret 
Givler, for a thorough inspection and criticism 
of the text in point of diction and rhetoric; and 
to Mr. William R. Wilson, of the University of 
Washington, for assistance in proof-reading as 
well as for suggestions as to clarity of expres- 
sion from the student's standpoint. 

Seattle, Aug. 1, 1915. 



VI 



CONTENTS 

Chapter I. Pa^e 
Tonninology 1 

Ciiai'Ti:h II. 
Psychological Analysis 39 

Chapter III. 

The Sensitive and Perceptive Organs 71 

Chapter IV. 
The Emotional Complex 302 

Chapter V. 
Matters and Minds 371 



THE "CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION" 
CHAPTER I. 

TERMINOLOGY 

1. There are two fallacies, either of which 
usually bothers the tyro in psychology: the 
first is, that since everybody has a mind, each 
one on that account knows more than any one 
else can know about his own mind; and the 
other is, that mind, being that unique and most 
intricate thing in the whole universe, contains 
something so elusive and mysterious that it can 
never be fully known. 

2. The first thing to do is to surmount both 
of these statements so that they will not 
plague us any longer. They are both samples 
of reasoning by analogy, rather than reasoning 
from principles concerning which there is no 
room for quibbling. If a thing can be dis- 
proven by the same sort of reasoning by w^hich 
it was proven, it cannot be sound. We shall, 
then, first disprove them by analogical reason- 
ing, and later on, by another and better kind, 
so that they will be permanently surmounted. 
Now, everybody not only has a mind, but a 
deceased ancestor, a mesentery, and at an early 

1 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
age, a future. But who would claim to know 
his own deceased ancestor as well as some one 
else might have known him, or that the 
healthy or diseased state of his own mesentery 
were as plainly before him as the news of to- 
day's paper? Nor, again, can it be maintained 
that one necessarily knows his own future or 
what its development will be as well as those 
who, having followed his family history, might 
safely predict after watching his habit forma- 
tions ripen into maturity beyond voluntary re- 
call. This shows sufficiently the purely verbal 
character of the first fallacy in the preceding 
paragraph. 

3. For the second one, a similar treatment 
will suffice. The mysterious element in mind is 
said to stand in the way of a scientific psychol- 
ogy, inasmuch as mystery is a word usually 
employed to indicate an inherent property of 
things not yet known. But, besides this, there 
is no reason why one should reserve his mys- 
teries until the last chapter of psychology, 
rather than plant them squarely at the begin- 
ning, or why that part of psychology which is 
open to investigation must therefore be pes- 
tered by some beetling mystery which comes 
ominously near and provokingly soon. To 
carry this fallacious argument to its limits, one 

2 



TERMINOLOGY 

would be permitted, in solving a mathematical 
problem, to excuse his errors in calculation on 
the ground that numbers were pure figments of 
the imagination anyway, and that his imagina- 
tion was at least as good as that of the early 
Egyptians. 

4. This is, however, only meeting poor 
arguments with equally poor ones. A fallacy 
is not merely something that can be laughed 
off, but in these cases it is something which 
needs to be surmounted by an appeal to exact 
principles rather than to the playfulness of 
w^ords. As soon as one begins an argument, he 
lays himself open to the perils of argument; it 
will also be public information whether what 
goes for proof can withstand all inquiry that is 
brought to bear upon the statements uttered 
and defended. The difficulty wdth these two 
fallacies is that they contain words which can- 
not be pressed for their meaning within the 
total context in which they are embedded ; lack- 
ing the form of clear-cut statements, they can- 
not be pressed for conclusions. Chaff put into 
a hopper will not grind into wheat in any mill 
except the one owned by Grimm and Grimm. 
Let us carefully show how this is. 

5. Every science is a collection of observed 
facts gathered together under the guidance of 

3 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

a permanent interest, plus as many conjectures 
as to the relationships of these facts to one an- 
other as are required to arrange them in a sys- 
tem or to apply them to things of the street. 
A system is an arrangement of things from sim- 
ple to complex, fundamental to variable; a pile 
of rubbish is not a system, while the plans for 
building a pyramid are. The facts of a science 
must first be supplied with names, and the sig- 
nificance of the names lies in what the things 
named will do to one another under certatin 
fixed conditions. So that which was first 
named by means of a noun, implying substance 
and fixity, often later on comes to mean what 
we express by verbs, — valences, chronic in- 
stabilities, readiness to affect or be affected by 
other things. Over the terminology, however, 
usually not much difficulty seriously arises; our 
language is not so petrified as to forbid a 
change of meaning without a change of form. 
But it is not such a simple matter when one 
comes to the conjectural part of a science. To 
formulate the laws of the way things behave, to 
be sure that one's sampling of behaviors is 
broad and salient, and to arrange the laws in a 
logical system, — here in the case of every 
science there is much difficulty, more disagree- 
ment and a maximum of doubt as to what can 

4 



TERMINOLOGY 

actually be deduced from a system so formed, 
no matter what the science may be, — Geometry 
or Ethics. 

6. Every science, therefore, might be said 
to have two sides, — one of observation and the 
other of logic. We perceive well enough, per- 
haps, what is before us, but we cannot speak 
well enough to cover the facts or to convince 
the audience. To offset this as much as pos- 
sible, every science reducible to exact termin- 
ology and quantification is phrased in symbols 
peculiarly specific and univocal in character. 
Words of many meanings will not do. It thus 
uses expressions which are defined, or limited 
in scope which cover precisely the data in- 
volved and have the same, rather than a differ- 
ent meaning to every one more or less con- 
cerned. One beginning the study of such a 
science often is disappointed at finding himself 
in the dark in regard to the thing to be studied, 
— he had thought that it w as to have much more 
connection with his daily, pressing needs. The 
reason for this is that those who have devel- 
oped the science had first themselves to unlearn 
the current, metaphorical, inexact speech in 
order to make any headway in it. To com- 
mand nature, they found they had first to obey 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

it, and so the lesser good had been butchered 
without a public ceremony of apology. 

7. Thus every science aims to be symbolical 
and univocal in its terminology. However, in 
psychology, one can hardly ever be said to be 
clear of that realm of discourse where the pri- 
vate interpretation of a word may not interrupt 
all attempts at deductive formulation. Almost 
every statement can be challenged, almost ev- 
ery fact be named in several fairly satisfactory 
ways. But this by no means relegates it to the 
realm of clannish prejudice. For when a fact 
has the possibility of being named in many 
ways, it means only one thing, — that it is no 
simple, single fact that is before one. One must 
then look to his terminology to see how much 
and in what essentials his names for facts have 
differences irreconcilable with straightforward 
deductive formulation. Everything is equally 
a matter of fact, and no datum has any special 
privileges. If one's logic cannot take care of 
this or that sufiicient statement, it is time for 
logic to be amended to fit a world whose scien- 
tific battles it fights. 

8. One thing more : no facts have the plas- 
tic character which language has. One goes to 
the facts, observes them, analyses and orders 
them; reconsiders, re-observes and carefully 

6 



TERMINOLOGY 

names them over again, — if his need for nam- 
ing comes out of a dominant motive in his en- 
deavors, — and no amount of juggling with the 
words apart from the facts can alter their 
status in the universe whose laws they exhibit. 
Hasty conclusions, private uses, idealistic or 
theological motives may seem to have the power 
of twisting out of their orders in the world the 
brute items of empirical nature, but a little 
watchfulness will serve to undermine such 
traducing of things empirical and render again 
to the Caesar of organized facts the things that 
are none but his. Even the private realm of 
one's own thoughts has of late years been ob- 
liged to yield to exact statement. Where, too, 
formal logic was insufficient to show the bear- 
ings of private thoughts upon behavior, an in- 
formal logic has been used to suit each indi- 
vidual case, thus meeting the unique and 
"mysterious" upon its own grounds. The 
growth of abnormal psychology has done much 
to tear away the mask from the so-called "inner 
self" and render its crab-like movements pain- 
fully visible to any curious passerby. 

9. But to the theme. The first two state- 
ments of this chapter were called fallacies not 
only because of their being controvertible by a 
mere twist of words, but rather because they 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

used concepts in a way totally inadequate to 
their logical significance in psychology. One 
argues only by means of logic. There are no 
"psychological" or "moral" or "economic" rea- 
sons, — not to say, of course, that psychologists 
or moralists or economists do not argue. Noth- 
ing powerful or superior, however, lies in any 
special kind of reasoning. All reasons are 
couched in "the rules of the game of talk," as 
my colleague. Dr. Ducasse, would say, and have 
validity only in so far as they conform to that 
pattern of expression. Other things may pro- 
voke belief, or persuade the lazy not to stew 
any longer in their own juice, but reasoning is 
like a game of chess, — it has inviolable rules. 
It has more, since every science is a case of ap- 
plied logic. The data of science are not in- 
vented, but discovered, and certain few things 
can be done with them and certain others can- 
not. Only when "dass Lied ist auss," does there 
come a hankering after any "special" type of 
reasoning. 

10. "Because I have a mind, therefore I 
should know more about it than any one else," 
— were this merely a verbal fallacy, one could 
easily laugh it down; but it contains a more 
serious fallacy than that. The expression, "I 
have a mind," harmless enough in itself, is a 

8 



TERMINOLOGY 

statement from which nothing can be argued, 
IF THAT STATEMENT IS THE STARTING 
POINT. The speaker of it considers himself a 
psychologist and intends that it shall be valid 
for psychology. What else could it purport 
to be? But as formulated, it is an inexact ob- 
servation, a bit of random thinking that needs 
to be drawn and quartered rather than em- 
ployed determinately. It is really a coales- 
cence of two statements, and belongs to the in- 
trospective psychology of selfhood rather than 
to the outspoken formulations of mental life. 
As a random thought, it exhibits the informal 
logic of random thinking; but statements meant 
for the public ear must be couched in the rules 
of the game of talk. It is not a premiss from 
which, by itself, anything whatever can be con- 
cluded. "Having," in fact, is a derivative of 
other things, — familiarity, acquisition, constant 
dealings with, something spoken or spoken of, 
and the like, and not an orginal, first-hand mat- 
ter at all. The other statement, — the one in- 
volving the Mystery and tacitly invoking her at 
the saine time, — exhibits several fallacies, 
which are: (1) that a mystery would not re- 
main a mystery if it were knowable, and (2) 
that the part depends upon the whole for its 
existence and significance. It will be seen 

9 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

later on in the chapter on psychological anal- 
ysis that, even if the naming of all the parts of a 
whole does not appear to exhaust or explain 
the properties of that whole, it is not due to 
thinking, but to the organization of the parts 
by an extra-mental set of functions, which ac- 
counts for the "mysterious" element to a large 
degree. The first of these statements under dis- 
cussion is a fallacy, therefore, because it is an 
inexact formulation. The second, likewise, be- 
cause it violates a law of the logic of organiza- 
tion. 

11. It will be advantageous, then, for the 
student to approach psychology without any 
presuppositions. Other assumptions than the 
aforementioned fallacies may arise in the read- 
er's mind; some of these coming from trivial, 
others from earnest desires in regard to ones- 
self. Yet hasty formulations are always un- 
wise, and usually, wrong. Psychology is a 
study of facts, facts not altered by thinking, and 
only the inability to back off from them as 
readily as from the facts of the physical sciences 
is responsible for the popular view of it as be- 
ing a study of the way one "feels" about things. 
Only because psychological things make up to 
so large an extent the tissue of human affairs is 
one led to infer that the naive expressions of 

10 



TERMINOLOGY 

popular speech can become the terminology of 
the science of psychology without alteration in 
meaning. "Mind," "consciousness," "thought," 
"emotion" and the like are all terms as familiar 
to the psychologist as to the man on the street, 
but the two cannot converse scientifically on 
the slender basis of this familiarity. Both care- 
ful examination and redefinition are essential 
if understanding is to accompany the use of 
such words. The need for such careful exam- 
ination is nowhere so revealed as in cases of 
naive prediction and reasoning about things 
mental. In the writings of certain mental heal- 
ers of today, for example, alliteration is the 
highest "logical" category; "experience proves" 
is a shibboleth from another quarter, from per- 
sons blissfully ignorant of the fact that experi- 
ence is both a noun and a verb, usually em- 
ployed in an equivocal sense. "It is unthink- 
able" asserts a third party, and then he goes on 
to state just how^ carefull}^ the "unthinkable" 
has been thought out. From such pitfalls of ex- 
pression one needs to be emphatically w^arned 
in psychology. 

12. Add to that this : there is as yet no com- 
plete, univocal terminology in psychology. 
Modern Logic has evolved a set of symbols 
which avoid careless interpretation of the pro- 

11 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

cesses in that science. The physical sciences, 
and, to a large extent the biological, also, need 
not always name their facts by such terms as 
can be quibbled over by those not initiated. 
Psychology, however, lying on the topmost froth 
of things, has never been and can never be, 
wholly free from the errors of verbalism. If 
it had radically fashioned its own set terms, and 
used heiroglyphic symbols to express them, this 
very fact might be a sign of its incapability to 
serve that human interest out of which it sprang 
and whose evolution it seeks to register daily. 
For while every deductive science is a case of 
applied logic, and while logic and mathematics 
are basically one, the universe of science rests 
not altogether solidly, but rather totters on the 
mathematical foundations to which we ulti- 
mately appeal for proof. 

13. For, if one goes to the facts of a science 
to find out what shall be said about them, and 
finds there a number of curiously enigmatical 
things, yes, even "mysterious" things, as one 
sometimes does, it would be lazy-mindedness 
and vanity alone which would lead him to 
call by simple names things which were exceed- 
ingly complex. Psychology is full of just such 
complexities. For example, one starts to in- 
vestigate a certain phenomenon, say memory; he 

12 



TERMINOLOGY 

names it by its accustomed name and sets an 
experiment which has all possible control over 
the conditions involved. But frequently the 
simple, first name given to it begins to prove 
inadequate; it is not simple, and the single 
noun, such as memory, adaptation and so on, 
will no longer do at all. Together with this, 
frequently conclusions will be drawn from the 
fact that simple words seemed to fit together to 
make conclusions sought for as words usually 
do, w^hereas the facts referred to by such words 
had need of being reinterpreted for use in any 
other context than the small one determined by 
the rigid conditions of a single experiment. 
The interests of science were thus curtailed. 
Clean experimentation, however, cannot be sat- 
isfied with such methods. If the simple name 
first given to the phenomenon is inadequate, 
or if the control of the conditions of experiment 
interferes with the free operation of the func- 
tions to be investigated, the work is dropped, the 
experiment reset, and the old categories are dis- 
carded. In psychology, as the signal example 
of a science whose reagents in the laboratory 
are human beings, one must be prepared for 
any emergency of this kind. Only a few hu- 
man beings make good subjects in psychology, 
and even those must go through a serious and 

13 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

long training in accepting the instructions given 
and keeping even-minded in order to be valu- 
able for the work under investigation. Psych- 
ology, as a record from which general state- 
ments can be made, is thus a study of the re- 
actions of selected human beings; its data are 
gathered from persons found fit to accept the 
conditions of experimentation, and not others. 
Figuratively, it is an assay of the highest grades 
of ore. Life is too short to evolve a deductive 
science of individual meteors. Not to say, how- 
ever, that with brows uplifted and eyes aloft, 
psychology neglects those unregenerates who 
fail to come up to strict laboratory require- 
ments; for this would be both pharisaism in 
science as well as unfairness to my fellow 
psychologists. Only this is meant, that to re- 
port specifically upon a matter requiring selec- 
tive attention, selective attenders of such a 
stripe are the only possible grist. When the 
erratic are in the majority, we are only experi- 
menting upon erratics and not upon the in- 
tended datum set forth. 

14. Coupled with the above warnings in the 
approach to psychology, a little need as well 
be said about the use of proof and deduction 
after the data of the science have been correct- 
ly named, the experiments cleanly performed, 

14 



TERMINOLOGY 

and the chief and siil)sidiary facts arranged in 
proper order. "This fact proves," it is some- 
times said, and about such statements the clans 
of science divide and dispute. There are cases, 
of course, where this is true, but one needs to 
be wary. All the sciences are of two kinds on 
this score, — those which are altogether deduc- 
tive and those which are slightly deductive and 
mostly empirical. Pure mathematics is the 
only strictly deductive science; all the others 
are of the latter class. 

15. Let us elucidate this difference. Deduc- 
tion starts with principles, which when in- 
volved, produce results and conclusions which 
are new in the sense of not being apparent 
from the original principles, but are "gener- 
ated" by the interaction of statements. This 
does not mean that some stater behind the 
statements does the generating, but that the 
empirical properties of a logical statement alone 
furnish the parts out of which the new formula- 
tion is made. For the stater behind the state- 
ments is but a mass of unformulated material, 
which must come out and "lie flat on the brush" 
before it can be claimed to have the persistent 
being of generating things. An empirical 
science, such as geology, on the other hand, 
first gets principles from observation, and in 

15 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

seeking to deduce other principles from them, 
MUST ALWAYS FIND FACTS OR TERMS 
which will satisfy the conclusions arrived at. 
All else is talking in the air. The chemist or 
the physicist can see how the conclusions of his 
statements ought to reach this or that end, but 
only the residues in the retort or the pattern of 
crystallization on the stone shows him what 
the upshot of his statements should have been. 
To a larger extent than the physicist or chem- 
ist will admit, also, most deduction in his 
science is just plain memory, — "it will happen 
again because it has happened before," sums up 
much of the claims for deduction in most of 
the natural sciences. Their power lies in the 
control of conditions, rather than in the ability 
of their conclusions to produce the facts in a 
presto manner. 

16. From all this it can be seen that the 
words "logical" and "factual" are not synon- 
ymous. Arguments about any matter may en- 
tirely jump the track and evaporate in non- 
sense. They may, again, run parallel, and, in 
that amount of a science which survives time, 
they do. But one needs always to be alert for 
the fact that will exactly fit his statements as 
well as for the statement that will exactly fit 
his facts, facts being rather hard data and not 

16 



TERMINOLOGY 

to be treated with impugnity. For while any 
statement derived from logic has a certain 
validity, and may be satisfied with terms from 
some sort of trans-experiential realm, unless 
the terms can be plainly exhibited to all comers, 
they should form no part of the body of the 
science. 

17. The use of the proper language and the 
understanding of just how much of the lan- 
guage one uses is pertinent to the matter in 
hand is so important for psychology, that I 
sha]l give on the next few pages samples of 
speech containing psychological as well as non- 
psychological material, some of which will be 
analysed for the student, the remainder being 
left for him to analyse for himself. At first, of 
course, he will not be able to see the full drift 
of it, but with further study, new insight will 
come. To many this will seem a curious and 
backhanded way of beginning the study of 
mind, for most text-books start in with an eluci- 
dation of neural processes and the gospel of 
dendrites, — things which only the post-mortem 
anatomist experiences first hand. These anal- 
yses we shall undertake are of things far more 
of the now and always, and the claim is here 
made that it is with this sort of thing that 
psychology is after all mostly concerned. Let 

17 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

US analyse the following statements in common 
use: 

1. The action of the heart is purely me- 
chanical. 

Psychological interest is here focussed on 
the word "purely." First compare the above 
statement with what is left with this word 
omitted. 

The action of the heart is mechanical. 

The action of the heart is purely mechanical. 

Logically it is the same, unless "purely" 
means "nothing but" or some such equivalence, 
gratia verborum, but psychologically this word 
adds one of several items to the situation, (a) 
It delays the utterance of the adjectival predi- 
cate "mechanical," and in so doing intensifies 
the effect of that predicate, and by the delay it 
causes also allows the first five words better 
to be assimilated and perceived as a unit. Or, 
(b) the word "purely" insinuates, by the tone 
of voice used in uttering it, something not alto- 
gether complimentary to the heart action and 
we are immediately affected by this bias in it. 

2. Where did you go yesterday? 

The answering of this question implies a 
memory. The full psychological putting of the 
matter would be something like this. The sen- 
sations of what objects and movements are 

18 



TERMINOLOGY 

restored to you upon the mention of a time 
twenty-four hours previous to this? Of course 
as a statement in psychology, it is very con- 
densed, and docs not ask by what means the 
memory is preserved, whether by vision, au- 
dition, movement, or speech; nor whether there 
is clarity or obscurity in the content of con- 
sciousness provoked by the question. 

3. I have never heard of it. 

We are concerned here with three things: 
(a) the past tense of the verb "hear," (b) the 
meaning of "never," and (c) the use of the prep- 
osition "of." As for the first of these, it refers 
again to memory; the second differs from the 
word "not" by temporal extent, drawn-outness, 
— "not" meaning a single point of time, while 
"never" means many "nots" in a continuous 
stream. The word "of," harmless as it sounds, 
is indicative of a very complex relationship. 
Whatever "it" means, whether an engagement 
between two lovers or a "cat's-paw" in calm 
weather, is surely a datum mentionable, hap- 
pening somewhere, and more or less related to 
other things. But we do not say "I hear of a 
noise," as the Greek language says it; we say 
hear a noise, see a light, smell a rose; and only 
a few verbs in English are followed by the prep- 
osition in comparison with many other lan- 

19 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

guages dead or living. What, then, do we mean 
by "hear of it," in referring to a thing past? 
Why, this, that the observer himself told it, and 
we heard him tell it, and thus we use the word 
"of" for things that come to us in relays rather 
than directly and immediately. But this does 
not mean that the expression "think of it" is ex- 
plained in the same way. "Think" is not al- 
ways followed by a preposition, nor are the 
words which follow the prepositions necessarily 
things relayed to the thinker. We shall take 
up this matter vigorously when we come to the 
old bugaboo, "consciousness OF." 

4. I like this ever so much more than that 
one. 

Liking is something peculiarly psychological, 
and is the starting point for choice. It cannot 
be referred to logic, for people "like" that which 
all arguments show is false, dangerous, and sure 
to produce an aftermath of ill. "Ever so 
much more" is an attempt to make a scale of 
values, and is an example of the only "mental" 
arithmetic there is. "Ever so much more," also 
differs from plain "more" by the greater num- 
ber of syllables intervening between "this one" 
and "that," allowing the voice to add emotion 
to the comparison. 



20 



TERMINOLOGY 

5. "Sicklied o'er with a pale cast of 
thought." 

This line from Hamlet is an hyperbole in 
rhetoric, while it is a case of empathy in 
psychology. Empathy differs from personifi- 
cation in that it neither capitalizes the import- 
ant word, nor does it imply as much animation 
as the latter. Thus, empathically, a mountain 
bears up the sky above it, while in personifica- 
tion the mountain is a man whose shoulders 
are overburdened with the weight of sky they 
support. Two of the words in this expression 
are strictly poetical, — "sicklied" and "o'er." 
"O'er" is used for smoothness and fine sound, 
while "sicklied" is a "new" word, psychological- 
ly. It arose from the mood background which 
dominated the author. The word "cast" is 
used to express inertness, referring at the same 
time to the fixity and whiteness of plaster; the 
sound of the word also helps to convey one of 
these meanings. The above expression, taken 
as a whole and apart from the context in which 
it was uttered, need not have any clear, whole- 
some meaning at all, for it was not uttered as 
any thing to be formally defined or analysed. 
Certain sayings are indexes of moods, and 
moods are not always possible or profitable to 
press for their signification. 

21 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

18. The student will analyse for himself as 
well as he can the following expressions: 

1. Fatima cigarettes are "Distinctively Indi- 
vidual." 

2. The price of this waist is $2.98. 

3. He completely forgot himself. 

4. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me 
your ears. 

5. By merit raised to that bad eminence. 

6. I have a good mind to do it. 

7. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is 
weak. 

8. Why, then the devil give him good of it. 

9. He thanked his stars. 
10. I only hope it is not so. 

19. Out of the preceding examples much 
more could be derived than has been indicated, 
but the analysis of a thing as it stands is quite 
different from an historical account of its de- 
velopment. This item has particular point in 
psychology, for here one has to explain how 
things started as well as why they continued 
and what they are now. This, of course, brings 
one face to face with what are called causes, 
and every science is supposed to have ready- 
made answers to every question beginning with 
"why" that can be formulated. And while this 
is a logical matter entirely, this much needs to 

22 



TERMINOLOGY 

be said about it at this point. Some questions 
beginning with "why" are answerable, and some 
others are not. If the reader will look into a 
text-book of Logic for the "fallacy of many 
questions" and study the examples there given, 
he will understand that every question begin- 
ning with "why" is answerable only when it 
contains one question and only one. Moreover, 
only such things have a cause as can be ana- 
lysed where at least one of the elements de- 
pends upon a temporal sequence for its specific 
eff'ect in the whole to which it contributes. 
Furthermore, there are in every science what 
are called "elements," "primary facts," "irre- 
ducible first principles," and to ask the reasons 
for them in that science is to ask a question to 
which there is only an "old wives' fable" for 
an answer. 

20. This can be directly shown by the fol- 
lowing: As the writer understands it, the dif- 
ference between mathematics and the other 
sciences is Time. There is, indeed, no mention 
of time in either Geometry or Algebra. Their 
principles, it is true, were found out by cul- 
tured gentlemen in this or that decade or cen- 
tury, but there is no t or t- in mathematics as 
there is, for example, in physics. Time being 
the one fundamental, independent variable of 

23 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

science, the sciences are logically arranged in 
point of the amount of dependence they show 
upon this temporal factor. In such an arrange- 
ment the sciences based on psychology are at 
the extreme end of the list, farthest from mathe- 
matics, — that is, from the mathematics which 
deals with general data and does not need to 
discount its answers upon meeting with the 
empirical situation. Less and less intric- 
ately involved in the temporal dilemma 
than is psychology are first the biological 
sciences, next the chemical, and next the 
physical. In the mathematical sciences, 
which come next, time is replaced by the sort 
of activity which generates the number system. 
As the time element increases in complexity in 
the scale of sciences, also, less and less do they 
become reducible to a mathematical or equa- 
tional form. Now the questions propounded to 
the physicist which ask "why" are explained 
either by reference to mathematics, or by the 
elements of his own science; those put to the 
chemist are referred either to his own data, to 
those of physics, or those of mathematics; and 
so on throughout the list. But not every "why" 
in any one science is necessarily referred be- 
yond that science. Some things are chemical, 
and that ends it. Thus, also, some things are 

24 



TERMINOLOGY 

psychological and nothing else, and the answer 
is vanity that attempts to find a first cause for 
them in the realm of things remote. The above- 
mentioned order, also, of the sciences is not 
reversible. One does not go to psychology, for 
instance, to find out the fundamental facts of 
geology, nor to the realm of esthetics for the 
fact that there are but three laws in Newton's 
formulation of the activity of moving bodies. 

21. Many writers call these "elements" or 
"primary facts" assumptions, and mean by that 
word something not altogether complimentary 
to the science. It is not here to be argued why 
these should not be accepted as assumptions, 
with all the unlovely flavor that has accrued to 
the word; but, on the other hand, it must be re- 
membered that no one starts a science, and that 
an assumption is not the first thing sought for 
by scientists. All science is chasing flying 
game, and no fair-minded scientist "assumes" 
except for the purpose of tentatively arranging 
facts in a probable order. 

22. The principal thing, also, in answering 
the question "why," (which is far less important 
than the questions "what" or "how"), is not to 
explain things away by reference to something 
remote or forgotten, but to point out the func- 
tional dependence of various things on each 

25 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

other. Cause is no longer a live word in 
science. Only naive minds seek for a cause. 
Just as the words "must" and "ought" have 
finally lost their zest, even in Ethics, so the word 
"cause" is nothing to conjure with today. Cause 
always had the ultimate meaning of "who made 
it?" and "making" is nothing with which science 
has to do. That vis viva or Anstoss which for- 
merly was said to make a stone in the air fall 
to the ground, or make a man follow theft with 
theft, is not any longer harbored in scientific 
thinking. Functional dependence has replaced 
it entirely, and by functional dependence the 
following things are meant: (1) that all nat- 
ural laws are laws of description and not of 
necessity, and (2) that those laws are exhibited 
only when terms are free to be involved in the 
relations they entail. If a room is full of il- 
luminating gas, only when there are persons in 
it will there be any deaths from asphyxiation; 
similarly, a nation will be successful in war 
only when patriotism is backed by a purse. 
"Only when," "when this, then that," "the con- 
ditions being fulfilled," — these are the salient 
words in science today. Cause is nothing to be 
wept or argued over; the question "why" is 
sheer myth and biography. 

23. It is by means of this principle of func- 
26 



TERMINOLOGY 

tional dependence that the empirical sciences, 
including psychology, become deductive as well. 
We shall see later on why, (apply the func- 
tional meaning from now on to this word), 
psychology is not a science of the "shreds and 
clippings of other things," nor a study of illu- 
sions or of brain perspirations, but a study of 
the functional dependence of mind upon the 
objects within reach of the sensitive and per- 
ceptive organs on the one hand, and of the ac- 
tion of auto-catalysed nerve colonies within the 
body on the other. A detailed explanation of 
the meaning of these expressions will be given 
in succeeding pages. Suffice it to say here, that 
the term "functional dependence" does not 
mean any chain-system of fore-ordained hap- 
penings, but rather the readiness of storehouses 
of energy to discharge upon the presentation 
of an excitant sufficient to arouse such dis- 
charge. The old idea of a cause (usually cap- 
ital "C") too often meant a subtle, monistic 
push, which in the same way and to the same 
end brought about every change or effect. The 
idea of functional dependence, on the contrary, 
assumes no such gratuities; things which stand 
in a functionally dependent relationship need 
have nothing in common, — no subtle, interpene- 
trating power which on the one hand allows, 

27 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

and on the other hand brings to bear, the act- 
ing force. Every change, to be brief, comes 
about by virtue of an unstable equilibrium; but 
there are equilibria of continuity as well as of 
position. This is the same as saying that ev- 
erything in the cosmos, unless it is manifest- 
ing this or that property exhaustively, is not 
fixed in that way of acting indefinitely, but is 
subject to any other combination of things 
strong enough to "capture" it. To use a crass 
figure, — if it does not do well in one occupation, 
it is free to enter another. 

24. What bearing this has upon psychology 
will at once be seen, if we consider that all such 
discussions as the "dualism of mind and body," 
"the effect one mind has upon another," or "the 
way mind controls the body," have absolutely 
no meaning under the concept of functional de- 
pendence of mind both upon its objects and 
upon the neural processes which grow toward 
certain independent tendencies within the body. 
In this book no word will be said either for or 
against the dualism of mind and matter, for or 
against the way minds control bodies, and the 
like outworn doctrines. Mind shall be re- 
garded as a cluster of objects and a colony of 
functions, and not as some hidden, uncanny 
ghost that roosts on a certain gland in the cere- 

28 



TERMINOLOGY 

brum, dabbling her feet in a puddle of lymph. 
The reader may be disappointed at not being 
able to while away a few more hours of his 
life with these old, old questions of such great 
moment. But a science does not begin with 
that sort of dawdling, nor is it furthered by per- 
sisting in it. We shall treat of mind empirical- 
ly, as something that is just as patent as bricks 
and barley, and for such a treatment the reader 
is invited to be fully prepared. 

25. It is now time to define the subject of 
this book — consciousness. Consciousness is the 
objects within responsive range of the nervous 
system, and the manner in which they are re- 
sponded to by the nervous system. It is thus a 
content, or various kinds of things more or less 
organized together, as well as degrees of closely 
knit or looser organization. The most accurate 
as well as the most brilliant putting of this idea 
is to be found in Edwin Holt's "The Concept of 
Consciousness," Chapter IX, from which I shall 
quote at some length, (p. 168) "Let us suppose 
that a plane mathematically true but one milli- 
metre thick passes perpendicularly through the 
roots, trunk and branches of a tree; and let us 
suppose all the molecules of chemical sub- 
stances belonging to the tree and included with- 
in the section, to be simply enumerated. It is 

29 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
clear that this collection is an actual part of 
the tree, and yet one that in itself would con- 
tribute very little to the life and development 

of the tree Yet this would not be a 

random collection, for it would include none 
but vegetable molecules included within the 
intersecting millimetre plane. The plane, with 
what it includes, is exactly defined in terms of 
the entire tree and the position of the plane. 
Merely from the point of view of the vital or- 
ganization of the tree would this collection be 
a random one. The law^ that defines the lie of 
the plane is not among the laws that define the 
anatomy and vegetable economy of the tree. 
Such a collection may be called a 'cross-section.' 
Similarly the prime numbers are a 'cross-sec- 
tion.' 

"Again, if the plane is a geometrical one of 
no thickness and passing horizontally through 
the trunk, it defines by its intersection a col- 
lection of contours that is a true portion of the 
tree, but one that is even less significant for 
the total economy of the tree than the collec- 
tion previously defined. A complete knowledge 
of it would be next to no knowledge of the tree 
as a whole. It would be, roughly speaking, 
merely a circular contour containing an infinity 
of minor contours." 

30 



TERMINOLOGY 

"Now the cross-sections so far adduced are 
not merely insignificant for the whole of which 
they are a part, but they are also rather insig- 
nificant for any system, howsoever inclusive. 
There are other cross-sections, however, which 
do have a prime significance in and for some 
manifold more complex and inclusive than the 
manifold through which the cross-section is 
initially made. Thus the sum total of all 
whales living in certain given waters is a cross- 
section of the sea that is significant for the 
whalers who are trying to locate and gather 
them in. The various shafts and levels of a 
mine are a cross-section of the mountain, and 
of import to the shareholders; it is the business 
of the engineer so to direct the workings that 
this cross-section shall coincide with that other 
cross-section that is made by the vein of ore. 

"Once again, a navigator exploring his 
course at night with the help of a searchlight, 
illuminates a considerable expanse of wave and 
cloud, occasionally the bow and forward mast 
of his ship, and the hither side of other ships 
and of buoys, lighthouses, and other objects 
that lie above the horizon. Now the sum total 
of all surfaces thus illuminated in the course, 
say, of an entire night, is a cross-section of the 
region in question that has rather interesting 

31 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

characteristics. It is defined, of course, by the 
contours and surface composition of the re- 
gion, including such changes as take place in 
these (specially on the surface of the waves), 
and by the searchlight and its movements, and 
by the progress of the ship. The manifold, so 
defined, however, is neither ship nor search- 
light, nor any part of them, but is a portion 
(oddly selected) of the region through which 
the ship is passing. This cross-section, as a 
manifold, is clearly extended in space, and ex- 
tended in time as well, since it extends through 
some watches of the night. This cross-section, 
furthermore, is in no sense inside the search- 
light, nor are the objects that make up the 
cross-section in any wise dependent on the 
searchlight for their substance or their being. 
"Now cross-sections that in many respects 
resemble the one just described are found in 
any manifold in which there is organic life." 
"It is to certain features, and not to others, of 
its environment that the living organism re- 
sponds, and the group of things to which it 
thus reacts constitutes a cross-section manifold 
that is of prime importance to one who is study- 
ing the organism and one that is of the most 
vital importance, of course, to the organism 
itself." 

32 



TERMINOLOGY 

(p. 173) "We have always known, of course, 
that plants 'respond' in a general way to sun- 
light, air and water. More recently we have 
become acquainted with processes that are 
more appropriately named responses. Roots 
do not grow downward by chance nor by any 
pre-established harmony, nor yet by instinct, 
but they respond mechanically to the attraction 
of gravitation, nor is this merely due to the 
general weight of the root, since by a compar- 
able mechanism the stems grow contrarily to 
gravitation. The roots are positively geotactic 
or barotropic, while the stems are negatively, 
and many kinds of branches transversely baro- 
tropic. Similarly, and by virtue of a distinct 
mechanism, the various parts of a plant respond 
variously to light of different colors and in- 
tensities, growing toward or away from such 
light: they are variously heliotropic. There are 
similar responses in vegetable organisms to 
thermal, chemical and even electrical stimuli, 
and we are gradually coming to know that these 
involve a well-differentiated and oftentimes a 
highly elaborate mechanism of response. Now^ 
clearly in the case of a given plant these baro-, 
helio-, thermo-, chemo-, and galvano-tropisms, 
these several mechanisms of response, define a 
certain cross-section of the plant's environment 

33 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

that is comparable with the cross-section de- 
fined by the searchlight. . . . And these 
forces, be it noted, to which the plant responds 
are distinct from the mechanism by which the 
response is effected; they are a portion of the 
environment." 

(p. 178) "In the case of vegetable organisms 
we found that the sum total of entities in the 
surrounding physical system t ) which a plant 
responds, forms an intricate and in some re- 
spects an interesting cross-section of such 
physical system. And from the point of view 
of the plant, clearly, this effective environment 
is all the environment that it has; and this en- 
vironment is distinct from its own organic 
structure. We saw, furthermore, even in our 
earliest cross-sections, in inorganic manifolds, 
that the cross-section often so cut the manifold 
as to reveal the conceptual or neutral nature 
of physical objects; the velocities of all flying 
projectiles, and the section of a tree cut by a 
mathematical plane, were such cross-sections. 
They are true parts of the projectiles and the 
tree, respectively, yet they are not ponderable 
physical bodies: they are certain neutral com- 
ponents of these bodies. The same is a fortiori 
true of the cross-sections defined by plant re- 
sponses. The leaflet bends toward a ray of 

34 



TERMINOLOGY 

light (a physical energy, if you will), but it re- 
sponds more rapidly to a more intense ray, and 
to a ver>^ weak ray it will not respond at all. 
It therefore responds not merely to light, but 
also to intensity. In responding differently to 
different grades of intensity, it defines grades of 
intensity as well as light energy, as components 
of its effective enviromental cross-section. Now 
whatever light may be, grades of intensity are 

not physical objects And these grades 

of intensity are not in the plant, certainly no 
farther in than the surface of the leaves. In a 
similar way plants respond in all their tropisms 
very specifically to direction 'as such'; and di- 
rection is a neutral entity. It too is not in the 
plant. And if we were thus to study plant re- 
sponse in detail, we should find that very few 
indeed of the factors to which the plant re- 
sponds are such entities as would ordinarly be 
said to have 'physical' existence; although both 
the plant and its environment are plain, phys- 
ical objects." 

(p. 182) "We have seen that the phenomenon 
of response defines a cross-section of the en- 
vironment without, which is a neutral mani- 
fold. Now this neutral cross-section outside of 
the nervous system, and composed of the neu- 
tral elements of physical and non-physical ob- 

35 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

jects to which the nervous system is respond- 
ing by some specific response, — this neutral 
cross-section, I submit, coincides exactly with 
the list of objects of which we say we are con- 
scious. This neutral cross-section as defined by 
the specific reaction of reflex arcs is the psychic 
realm : — it is the manifold of our sensations, per- 
ceptions, and ideas: — it is consciousness." In 
this conscious cross-section, furthermore, let it 
be understood once and for all, that everything 
ever called mental, psychical or any other term 
referring to knowledge, awareness, feeling or 
judgment is unequivocally and thoroughly con- 
tained. If there be mystery, also, it is right 
there; as well as dreams, hallucinations, and 
the other twilight phenomena of psychology. 
Those "having minds, and therefore claiming 
an a priori peek into their nature," are none the 
less referable to this concept of consciousness 
for an explanation of their sayings and think- 
ings. For while we select for our laboratories 
only those having gumption and grandfathers, 
a complete psychology accounts satisfactorily 
for the whole gamut of human interests, affec- 
tions and disaffections. Furthermore, we shall 
not say anything about the 'purely' mechanical 
or the 'purely' mental; things will be just plain 
mechanical and plain mental, instead. Hard 

36 



TERMINOLOGY 

atoms and soft souls may suit the tempera- 
mentally minded, but whatever vanities science 
may exhibit, temperament is not one of them. 
However, psychology being the realm in which 
temperaments operate, no grudge need accom- 
pany the task of explaining them. 

26. We are then not going to study capital 
M mind, nor are we to treat of consciousness as 
an inner imp. We shall treat of it as a vary- 
ing content, as a shifting process, and as a man- 
ifold with a highly unstable center of refer- 
ence, — the pronoun I. The language by which 
we express our thoughts has been shown to be 
now too abbreviated, now too redundant and 
oftener than either, too erratic to be depended 
upon for scientific purposes without pruning 
and redirection. Our naive view of mind, also, 
must for a time be passed through the fine 
sieve of analysis in order that confusion of 
words be avoided. This is not a materialistic 
psycholog>% but a realistic one which is here 
presented. In the next chapter it will be shown 
why materialism is too theological for scientific 
purposes. A scientific psychology has neither 
intention nor power to deny the existence of 
anything which humanity has found meaning- 
ful, but there is no law in the universe which 
guarantees that accuracy shall be evolved from 

37 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

chronogenetic thinking, nor that what we are 
wont to say about ourselves need have any 
truth in it at all. 

Bibliography. 

Holt, E. B., "The Concept of Consciousness," 
especially chapters VI, VII, VIII and IX. 

James, W., "Essays in Radical Empiricism," 
especially Chap. I, "Does 'Consciousness' Ex- 
ist?" and Chap. Ill, "The Thing and its Rela- 
tions." 

Mach, E., "Contributions to the Analysis of 
the Sensations," especially the "Introductory 
Remarks. Antimetaphysical." 



38 



CHAPTER II. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

1. Whether one asks "what" the mind is, 
"how" it acts, or "why" it does thus or so, the 
answer is to be sought for only in analysis. For 
all such questions insinuate either a content or 
a process not yet discerned in its parts or rela- 
tions, and only an answer that is explicative will 
suffice to enlarge our knowledge of the subject. 
The test of analysis also rests upon its giving 
such answers as will clarify rather than be- 
cloud the matter under investigation, but it 
scarcely needs to be said that the goal arrived 
at does not gain its validity from squaring with 
naive expectation. 

2. Psychological analysis concerns only the 
data of psychology. We do not analyse 
glaciers by it, nor do we seek to discover by its 
use the laws of thermo-dynamics. But the col- 
ors of glaciers may be analysed by psychological 
means without any reference to the speed of 
those masses of moving ice which are colorful 
as well as cold. In the same way, the manner 
in which the laws of thermo-dynamics were 
found are material for psycholog>% since the 
human beings who struggled to know them rea- 

39 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

soned from the data as minds are always wont 
to reason. Notice these cases of such analysis. 

(a) Orange is a mixture of red and yellow, 
while violet is a mixture of red and blue. The 
position of these colors in the spectrum tells 
nothing about their properties when abstracted 
from such a series, but by means of the eye 
alone we detect something both reddish and 
yellowish about orange, and something both 
reddish and bluish about violet. On the con- 
trary, we cannot analyse either green, yellow, 
blue or red into anything else, and so for phy- 
chology these are ultimate hues. 

(b) One closes his eyes, and tells as well 
as he can the direction from which a sound 
is coming. By turning his head this way and 
(that, by pausing and carefully (listening, he 
finally decides upon the general direction by 
means of his ears and movements alone. Then, 
under the same conditions, two sounds are 
employed which he is to distinguish as being 
equally or unequally far away, symmetrically 
or unsymmetrically placed with reference to 
the head, and so on. Each time he attends, es- 
timates and judges by the same means and thus 
is said to analyse the situation psychologically. 

(c) While we are sitting in a hotel lobby, a 
scuffle occurs on the street outside and some 

40 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

one is badly hurt. The matter becomes of legal 
proportions and our testimony is required to 
determine the exact status of the ofi'ense. We 
saw something, heard something, and were 
somewhat disturbed over it, but just what oc- 
curred that we can sw^ear to is not quite clear 
and plain. Court-room testimony follows, and, 
by reason of agreement among veracious wit- 
nesses, there is a verdict. The process of re- 
calling what happened, how it developed, and 
why the case ended as it did is entirely a 
psychological matter, and the results are vainly 
appealed to other than psychological beings, — 
justice or injustice being the residue of seeing, 
hearing, remembering, feeling, intending, and 
so on, with which no physicist, chemist, astron- 
omer or other scientist is able to deal with first 
hand at all. Psychology exhausts it utterly. 

(d) An old and wealthy uncle does not 
shake off the mortal coils soon enough to suit 
his prospective legatees. They each know what 
his will provides for them, but, fearing that he 
may change his mind any moment, try to get 
him committed to some asylum in order to gain 
their present ends. But the uncle is individual- 
istic, and far from allowing himself to be beck- 
oned unresistingly away, fights the attempt by 
legal means. Alienists are called in and his 

41 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
mind is thoroughly tested by analysis to prove 
or disprove the charge made against him by 
his relatives. Whom else should they call in 
except psychological analysers? Psychological 
data are the ultimate things in the case, — the 
uncle's habits, temper, typical manifestations 
of all kinds, — and when these are sifted over 
and over again to a conclusion, there is no ap- 
peal beyond it. The uncle is what he does, 
says, feels, and the like, and the result is total- 
ly in and of psychology. 

These will suffice as a preliminary to other 
analyses which must be delayed until later 
topics in the book introduce them. 

2. Just what analysis properly is may be 
shown by the following quotation from E. G. 
Spauding's "A Defense of Analysis," from the 
"New Realism" (p. 161) : 

" Given a whole which, for one rea- 
son or another, is known to be analysable, then 
analysis reveals parts, but it also reveals the re- 
lations which relate and so organize these parts 
into some kind of a whole. Consider also those 
properties which, in some cases, the whole, as 
a whole, may have different from those of the 
parts. Of course, analysis reveals these also. 
The analysis may be incomplete in the sense 
that there may be further parts, that is, parts of 

42 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

parts, which are not yet revealed; but, if ana- 
lysis is incomplete only in this sense, that is, if 
there have been revealed parts, their organizing 
relations, and, in some cases, the possibly 
specific properties of the whole, then the ana- 
lysis may be said to be adequate. It exhausts 
the whole up to the point that it reaches, in 
that, while the specification of all that the 
analysis reveals does not specify the whole, the 
whole, nevertheless, is the parts and their prop- 
erties and the relations relating the parts and 
the possibly specific properties of the whole. 
There may be further parts of parts, more prop- 
erties, more relations to be revealed, but this of 
itself does not invalidate the position that the 
properties of the parts and the generating re- 
lations which are revealed are quite as real as 
is the whole which is analysed, are not con- 
tradictory of the whole, and exist, or subsist, in- 
dependently of the discovery and of the speci- 
fication." To apply this to a case in point in 
psychology, the analysis of a so-called "mental" 
situation into object and response, or into con- 
tent and process, does not make it "physical" 
or "neurological" to the exclusion of its being 
"psychological"; no more than does the analysis 
of the pictorial representation of a triangle into 
three straight or three curved lines make absurd 

43 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

or impossible the mention of triangularity along 
with the mention of the lines. This also is a 
vital point: that the psychological simplicity of 
things is too often mistaken for logical simplic- 
ity; for it shall happen that ever so much more 
than we suspect is blended into a single sensa- 
tion, emotion, or perception, which only ana- 
lysis can reveal. But we shall find that there 
is nothing "mental" behind the psychological 
wholes we analyse into parts, or those psy- 
chological things we split into their attributes. 
The "mental" is an organizing relation, separ- 
able from the organized elements, and in no 
sense bewitching them when out of such rela- 
tion. 

3. There is today in some quarters much 
opposition to the analytic method in psychol- 
ogy. It is said to invent rather than discover 
the parts and relations it finds. This hails from 
that era of lazymindedness when a "mental" 
substance and a "physical" substance were said 
to irrevocably dichotomize the universe; from 
which substances bodies and souls, matter and 
mind were held to emanate. Two great un- 
knowns were hypothecated, — unknowns, mind 
you, and yet mentioned with all the toplofty 
grandiloquence of philosophy's worst. Objects 
and thoughts were then simply the scruff of 

44 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

these mentioned unmentionables in which rea- 
son, vahie and stability were forever snugly 
sequestered. To be sure, death has been kind 
enough to remove some of the upholders of this 
doctrine from our sight, while the advance of 
general intelligence has revealed the unpleas- 
ant, ulterior motives lying behind it. 

4. Even today a timidity characterizes some 
of those who defend analysis. One defender to 
whom I could specifically refer asks why he 
shouldn't use it, since even its defamers employ 
it in their attacks. Another avers that for 
"scientific" purposes one must assume the 
analysability of all subject matter, — for since 
minds are free, they are therefore even at lib- 
erty to consider themselves purely or grossly 
mechanical, just as they choose. Both of these 
defenses are all too timid, and the flank attacks 
they allow and invite would be in both cases 
deadly, if undertaken. Let us surmount these 
arguments as we have done former ones. 
As far as the first is concerned, it is a 
lame excuse to claim the victory on a 
draw. If defamers of analysis use it, of 
course they involve themselves in a net, 
but that is hardly the point. The point is 
whether they have used it expressly to get in- 
volved in the net, for if this can be shown, we 

45 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
need only account it another defeat for verbal- 
ism. And verbalism is just what it always turns 
out to be. This is, indeed, being almost too 
generous; for having to extricate from their 
own "mire of logic" those who wilfully fall 
therein, would not be half so pathetic if it 
might only show in this case that analysis had 
been a word misunderstood, — a name much 
taken in vain. To show where analysis is ef- 
fective, one has only to point to those cases 
where it neither controverts itself nor fails to 
reveal the parts or relations it chases hot-foot 
after. 

5. As for the second of the above state- 
ments, it misses the whole point in the matter 
under discussion. Analysis defines neither 
freedom nor continuity. It arises merely from 
the wholesome suspicion that the safest and 
wisest thing to do is to continually regard as 
ultimately compilex that which appears psy- 
chologically simple. It grants, for instance, 
that looking at a color and saying nothing about 
it may be a single, illy defined state of mind. 
But that is not the only sort of color experienc- 
ing we find in the cosmos. Artists and physi- 
cists mention their colors and thereby get in- 
volved in the game of talk; and, curses or no 
on the man who discovered logic, the mention- 

46 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

ing of colors even throws light upon the ex- 
periencing of colors without mentioning them 
at the time! Besides, according to this wisp of 
a sentence about "mental freedom," almost any 
sort of declaration one felt eager to make might 
have a place in the sun. I vaguely recall read- 
ing somewhere that the word "Adam" (the gar- 
den variety) means "a dam" or "obstruction," 
whence is proven that "mortal mind" is very, 
very impervious to spiritual influences. There 
was a day, I am told, when word-juggling such 
as this passed for logical astuteness. 

6. My own defense of analysis is as follows. 
Even if there should be in everything one at- 
tempts to analyse two series, — one, an indefinite 
continuity, the other a discrete discontinuity; 
the first giving it thinghood out of ineffable 
substance, the second giving it thinghood out 
of elements in relation, — only the latter being 
reduced to parts by analysis, — then it is high 
time to enquire what is the difference between 
them in the aggregate which they form. If, 
for example, there are two coats in the coat I 
wear, — the one made up of the pieces of cloth 
sewed together, and the other a something 
which as a concept or idea is not destroyed 
though the coat be cut up into patches, — then 
of course what I analyse in this and in other 

47 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
situations is made of parts, and not that coat 
"which was from the beginning and is now." 
But even if a concept, or idea, say that of a 
coat, can be show^n to differ from another con- 
cept, say that of a card-case within the coat 
pocket; and if their differences can be made 
specific, then what is different must differ in 
nameable ways. And if the difference between 
concepts is such a one as this, and it is, then all 
concepts are as analysable as are "things," for 
one concept will differ from another in the 
same way as one "thing" from another. Thus 
the "mental" and the "physical" are both equal- 
ly mentionable and analysable. We shall see 
presently of what their parts are made. And 
if any one says that the science of psychology 
does not come within three miles of explaining 
his mind, I shall only remand him either to 
poetry for solace, or to these words of William 
James for reproof: "Things of an unexperi- 
enceable nature may exist ad libitum, but they 
form no part of the material for philosophic 
debate." Again, if it is said that one loses most 
of the specific properties of the whole in the 
midst of analysis, and has but "shreds and 
clippings" for his pains, one then but sees what 
a powerful logical weapon it is, for by means 
of it he can find out, as his analysis proceeds, 

48 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

just where this or that property of an organ- 
ized whole vanishes from the complex. So that 
along with the "immoral value" of destruction 
comes the cognitive value of locating and 
trouncing the "mysterious." 

7. Rebounding flabbily from these argu- 
ments, the adversary once more challenges: 
"What you should do is to 'synthesize' rather 
than analyse; build up rather than destroy in 
your scientific endeavor." We reply with a 
double answer. Things are first found synthe- 
sized, but the fusion and confusion thereby en- 
tailed is quite opposed in many cases to the 
purposes of science. You cannot make a Bot- 
any out of the chronogenetic order of trees and 
flowers; indeed, you can just passably make a 
garden. And this: the synthetic, temporal or- 
der of nature is not the only synthetic order 
possible; nor is it the order, whether or no, 
which makes any science deductive. So that, far 
from avoiding the issue, the scientific analyst 
accepts the task of two lifetimes, — both that 
of following the chronogenetic syntheses of na- 
ture and that of planning the way for that 
synthesis which shall best suit the practical 
concerns of subduing nature for his own spir- 
itual ends. 

8. Psychology, as the science of the con- 

49 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

scious cross-section, is stated in the same way 
as any other science, namely, by the use of 
terms in relation. For example, Boyle's Law 
states that, "For the same temperature the 
density of a gas is directly proportional to the 
pressure acting upon it." Now as it stands, the 
chief relational aspect is contained in the 
words "directly proportional." Also as it 
stands, the terms are these three: (1) For the 
same temperature, (2) the density of a gas, and 
(3) the pressure acting upon it. But (2) and 
(3) are alone immediately related to the ex- 
pression, "directly proportional"; for when the 
temperature varies, another relation replaces it. 
But in psychology, one frequently finds that 
the expression "other things being equal" (such 
as equal temperatures in physics) does not often 
suffer itself to be used in a formula. That is 
to say, that one difference between physics, as 
a fairly deductive science throughout, and psy- 
chology as a science deductive only in point of 
large masses of terms in relation being con- 
strued as units of functionation, is that we can- 
not confine the "proportionality" of terms to 
that immediate relationship in which we seek 
to embed them. For instance, one can predict 
the actions of a crowd better than those of a 
single individual, on account of the motives 

50 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

there operative having a maximum of impera- 
tive urgency. The problem of three celestial 
bodies perplexes the astronomer, while three 
"busy bodies" gives the psychologist no concern. 
It is the business of psychological analysis to 
find the extent to which deduction of one kind 
or another pertains to the whole diameter of 
the conscious cross-section. 

9. The use of relations demands that they 
be distinguished from one another. We saw 
in the first chapter what one meaning of the 
"of" relation resolved itself into. "Having" is 
also a complex set of relations and functions all 
telescoped together in language. One differ- 
ence between legal and logical form may be 
here inserted for the benefit of the light it 
throws upon psychology, — and that is that the 
law repeats the psychology entailed in a situa- 
tion by the use of synonyms, rather than it de- 
fines unequivocally any term or relation em- 
ployed. To insure the "having" relation, one 
legally gives, bequeaths, bestows, etc., rather 
than signifies what all this business specifically 
means. The number of relations is well-nigh 
legion, and for many of them our names are 
inadequate. "Before" has no linguistic diff'er- 
entiation when used as a temporal expression 
from what it has when used as indicating log- 

51 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ical priority. Likewise, "next" is used for a 
spacial as well as a temporal, or other relation 
without any change in spelling. Such examples 
could be multiplied ad libitum, but suffice it to 
say that this condition of inexact definition in 
language is what makes oratory possible. There 
are spacial relations, temporal relations, logical 
relations, and still other relations, not a few of 
which are psychological; for which, following 
the example of symbolic logic, fit expressions 
will be eventually found. But before this is 
done, we can still point out a few character- 
istics of relations in general which must be kept 
in mind in order to understand the logic of any 
science. As follows: — 

(1) Transitivity. If "R" between x and y 
indicates that they are in relation, then the re- 
lation is a transitive one if xRy and yRz togeth- 
er imply xRz. Otherwise it is intransitive. For 
example, in learning some complicated opera- 
tion, such as piano playing, every distinct move- 
ment or set of movements is serially focal in 
consciousness. Whereas later on, upon the 
mere mention of this or that piece of music, 
consciousness is solely involved in the motor 
aspect of a tidy performance, the stages of 
learning having been looped into the co- or sub- 



52 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

conscious, never to reappear unless aroused 
through interruption. 

(2) Symmetry. If xRy implies j/R.r, the re- 
lation is said to be symmetrical. This will 
have bearing for us in the phenomenon of sim- 
ultaneous as opposed to successive presenta- 
tions of a stimulus. Indeed, "before" or "after" 
in psychology always involves something more 
complex than at first sight seems. The touch 
of velvet after the touch of emery paper may 
arouse one kind of feeling-consciousness, while 
the result of reversing the process may produce 
another or even the same kind. Temporal suc- 
cessions in psychology are very delicate and 
intricate things to handle. But the very same 
phenomena are found in other sciences. Even 
the business of making microscopic slides in- 
volves an asymmetrical temporal series of in- 
filtrations. The chef also uses this principle 
in making butter sauces. 

(3) Correlation. This is of two kinds, or- 
dinal and mixed. For instance, if there are two 
series of measurements, S and s, the terms of 
which are A, B, C, D, E, F. . . .N and a, b, c, d, 
e, f....n respectively, and if Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, 
etc., are specifically coupled together in this as 
well as in the reverse order, we have a case of 
ordinal correlation. In some cases of paired 

53 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

comparisons with steady and constant subjects, 
such a correlation has been approached for psy- 
chology in a limited series. Oftener, indeed, 
the mixed correlation is derived, which consists 
in the coupling of any term of one series with 
any term of the other in any order. 

In all cases of relations, the domain of the 
relation has to be considered. Consciousness 
of we shall see has but a limited use. Likewise 
only a few series will be transitive, symmetrical 
or ordinally correlated. What series they are 
as well as the precise meaning of these rela- 
tions in psychology should be at all times clear- 
ly kept in view. 

10. Before sorting the conscious cross-sec- 
tion into its different compartments, I shall 
quote from an article by R. B. Perry entitled 
"A Realistic Theory of Independence," found in 
"The New Realism," to lay the ghost of some 
common notions in regard to the nature of com- 
plexes. This will be the last mention of sub- 
stances in this book. The quotation starts on 
page 107 of the above mentioned book with an 
analysis of certain further relations common 
to the material of psychology. 

*'Whole-part. — A whole is said to be de- 
pendent on its parts, — on what it contains, and 
can be divided into. It is worth while to in- 

54 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

troduce at this point a distinction between 'ma- 
terial' and 'formal' instances of the whole-part 
dependence. The first is exhibited in the re- 
lation between the present city of London and 
Trafalgar Square. . . . The second is ex- 
hibited between a city and its streets. . . . 
In other words, a material relation is a relation 
between particular values of variables, while 
a formal relation subsists between the variables 
themselves. The dependence of whole on part 
may be of either type. 

"Part-whole. — Parts are said to be depend- 
ent on the whole to which they belong when 
these wholes are 'organic' Thus the hypoth- 
enuse of a right-angle triangle is . . . de- 
pendent on the definition of the right-angle tri- 
angle." ". . . its magnitude is determined 
by its interrelation with other parts, such as 
the opposite angle and its adjacent sides." 
"Similarly, an organ or member in the biolog- 
ical sense is said to be dependent ... on 
the integrity of the organism to which it be- 
longs. 

"But such dependence would appear to be 
reducible to dependence of other types" . . . 
"we are virtually naming a part for its partici- 
pation in a whole." "Or it may be construed 
as meaning that a part cannot be a part, that is, 

55 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

belonging to a whole, without the whole. But 
this is equivalent to saying that the complex 
relationship of part and whole depends on the 
whole as one of its terms. And this is a case 
of dependence of whole on part, and not of 
part on whole." 

"The dependence of members of a living 
organism may be disposed of in the same man- 
ner. The respiratory system cannot be a vital 
function without the whole organism. But 
this is merely to say that it cannot belong to an 
organism without an organism to belong to. 
To make the dependence of the part evident 
one must describe the part as part-of-whole. 
But the dependence of member-of-organism on 
organism is not a dependence of part on whole, 
but rather a dependence of whole on part. It 
asserts the dependence of a complex relation- 
ship on one of its terms. 

*'Thing-attribute. — [This] relation presents 
no novelties in connection with the matter of 
dependence." "... where a thing is re- 
garded as dependent on its attributes, it is 
either 'made up' of them, or defined 'in terms' 
of them. . . . Both would be instances of the 
whole-part type of dependence as described 
above." (This has an insistent bearing upon 



56 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

the analysis of sensations which we shall take 
up in the next chapter.) 

''Attribute-thing. — The question of the de- 
pendence of attributes on the thing to which 
they belong, resembles the question of the de- 
pendence of part on whole. Red cannot be 
attribute of the rose without the rose; nor 
would it bear the peculiar relation that it does 
to odor, form, and growth of the rose, were it 
not for the nature of the rose as a whole. But 
this will, I think, turn out to mean either that 
a rose is a rose (redundancy) ; or that the red- 
rose relationship depends on 'rose' as one of 
its terms (whole-part) ; or that the redness of 
the rose is determined by its age, chemical 
structure, nutrition, etc. (causation). We may 
therefore dispense with the attribute-thing re- 
lation as a primary type of dependence. 

''Causation. — " . . . Causality is a ma- 
terial relation between two complexes, derived 
from a primary formal relation between their 
constituent variables." (N. B. This is what 
I meant in the first chapter by saying that ev- 
ery science was a case of applied logic.) "Thus 
if v=gt, for all values of these variables, then 
any given velocity {v), is dependent on the con- 
stant of gravity (g), and some magnitude of 
time (0- The formal relation among the vari- 

57 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ables is called the 'law,' and the material deter- 
mination of the values of the variables, as pre- 
scribed by the law, is causation. 

". . . it is customary to limit the adjec- 
tive 'causal' to laws which contain time as a 
variable; and to treat time in the positive or 
forward direction as the independent variable." 

"It is to be remarked that causation is con- 
ditioned by the law. In other words, it takes 
place only within the system which the law de- 
scribes; [N. B. the use of ''only when" in the 
first chapterl and can be attributed to a com- 
plex only when the complex is identified as 'a 
case of the system. . . Causes and effects 
are thus interdependent within the given sys- 
tem, or under the law. These determine their 
behavior under certain conditions, but do not 
prove that the conditions themselves are nec- 
essary. For it is possible that a given complex 
should be accounted for in terms of one system, 
and yet conform to the requirements of another 
system as well." Or not conform, equally well 
either. It does not need to be an illusion, or a 
thing to be apologized for that some things are 
psychological and nothing else. My uncle's 
house can well be mortgaged and part of my 
summer night's dream world at the same time. 

** Reciprocity. — It is customary to use the 
58 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

term 'reciprocity' to express a relation of the 
same type as causation, but without the same 
emphasis on temporal antecedence and conse- 
(luence. It is evident that the relation among 
the various values of the variables of a law is 
mutual. It is possible not only to predict the 
future, but also in like manner to infer the 
past. Similarly, it is possible to infer simul- 
taneities, as e. g., in the case of the configura- 
tion of the planetary system, or the co-presence 
of extension and color in the visual field. It is 
not even necessary that time should enter into 
such calculations at all; as is illustrated by the 
interdependence of spacial magnitudes as for- 
mulated by geometry. 'Reciprocity,' then, may 
be taken to mean the mutual determination of 
values of variables under the law, where the 
factor of time-direction is not essential." 

11. Now the very reason substances have 
had their little day and cease to be in enlight- 
ened science is just because the pursuit of re- 
lations to their lair has shown not only that 
they are neither mental nor physical, but also 
that they are the ver^^ tissue of the organiza- 
tion of the cosmos. It is these which cement 
the elements of things together, and are not 
substantial in any sense in which that old pair 
of disreputable cronies, 3/atter and Mind, were 

59 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

latterly regarded. The significant differences 
in the universe are relational, not substantial, 
and not "mental," either, in the sense of being 
generated, altered and dominated by thinking. 
Relations are indeed the hardest data of the 
cosmos, and inasmuch as they are the core of 
every fact, must be treated with something 
else than other-v^orldly-mindedness if one is to 
treat with them at all fairly. I promised in the 
last chapter to show why materialism is too 
theological a doctrine for scientific purposes. 
This is the pat place for doing so. The "logic 
of relations," into which we have entered here 
at some length, would serve in physics to show 
that there are some things which are not phys- 
ical or material even in that science, and that 
those things (relations) are quite more import- 
ant to the universe than the miscroscopic and 
Oh so hard! brick-bats which the old-line ma- 
terialists claim to be the ultimate stuffing of 
the cosmos. Every substance-iheory of the uni- 
verse is theological. The absolute idealist and 
the absolute materialist differ only in the 
amount of personality they ascribe to the prime 
substance behind everything. Ego, egg, atom, 
ether-squirt, ether-vortex, hole-in-the-ether, — 
whichever of these one chooses, it is only a 
different name for something hidden and mys- 

60 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

terious, — something supposed to add profundity 
to the faith by virtue of its remoteness and awe- 
inspiring character. As we approach nearer to 
the data of psychology, also, it will be seen that 
all of these notions must be discarded. "Spirit- 
stuft" is as relational as "matter," and when 
one analyses even "souls," one finds no hidden, 
mysterious thing there at all. At this the stu- 
dent may well throw up his hands, wondering 
what there is, if matter and mind are equally 
to be pushed aside. 

12. It is now time to sort the data of the 
conscious cross-section. By consciousness we 
shall mean every object within range of the 
nervous system, — whether it be our neighbor 
planet, a finger nail, a mathematical problem, 
or a call from starving India; as well as every 
neural process going on entirely within the epi- 
dermis, — such as the gastric and other splanch- 
nic functions, spinal perceptions, or cerebral 
functionations; in addition to which are the re- 
sponses from body to object, no matter how far 
distant or how abstract it is. But among this 
host of objects and responses only a few are 
within instant report, — only a few items of the 
possible content are taken up and dealt with 
furtheringly or effectively. Now, bare notice, 
without naming or further handling, as well 

61 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

as such items barely noticed, we shall call 
awareness or sub-focal consciousness. Those 
we fix upon and deal with furtheringly, we shall 
call focal or attentive consciousness, as well as 
so denominate the processes involved. Those 
contents and processes which are the next less 
clear than awareness or sub-focal consciousness, 
we shall call the co-conscious; while those proc- 
esses only (not contents, for the contents cease 
with co-consciousness), which serve especially 
to others than ourselves to elucidate the status 
of these first three elements, we shall call the 
sub-conscious ; meaning also by the term that 
they are evermore present as physiological 
processes defying any kind of elevation to fo- 
cality. While the term un-conscious shall be 
used to indicate those physiological processes 
which have less and less specific and directly 
traceable influences upon the more focal di- 
visions of consciousness. Language normally 
functions for but the first three divisions enum- 
erated above. Abnormally, however, it func- 
tions for the fourth, but never for the fifth. 
This, I take it, is the logical division of the 
conscious cross-section into its grand divisions; 
and it must be noted that it makes no more 
provision for genetic psychology than a gen- 
eral treatise owes to such a subject. 

62 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

13. The above analysis may be briefly 
termed focal distribution. What become focal 
are, in the main, three items, — sensation, per- 
ception and emotional complexes. Now sensa- 
tions illustrate the attribute-thing relationship, 
perceptions illustrate the part-whole type of 
organization, while the emotional complexes il- 
lustrate a special type of attribute-thing-func- 
tion. Furthermore, sensation is found in the 
sub-focal, focal and co-conscious divisions, per- 
ception is found in these also with the sub-con- 
scious added, while the emotional complexes 
are chiefly concerned with the sub-, co-, and 
focal consciousnesses. The causal sequence of 
these will be shown in the special chapters 
treating of them, as well as the succession of 
the various focalities of consciousness owing 
to qualitative and quantitative elements in the 
sensations, perceptions and emotional com- 
plexes to be presented. 

14. From this it can well be seen that one 
starts with nothing "simple" in psychology. In 
the next chapter sensations will be analysed 
into more than a dozen elements. Perceptions 
will turn out to be sensations organized into 
structures which have meaning when there is 
motor readiness to act somehow in regard to 
them. Again, in the emotional complex it will 

63 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
always be a situation to which we shall refer, 
and not to a conscious atom to explain the 
"mental" aspect of the items discussed. Every 
bit of our living and moving is immensely com- 
plicated. But this does not make it impossible 
for psychological "simples" to be found. They 
will not, however, be stated by the use of nouns, 
but of verbs, adjectives and adverbs. It is the 
manner of the response to the environment 
which defines psychology, — not the things re- 
sponded to. Also remember this: that the en- 
vironment referred to in various situations 
means neither "that mysterious 'external' world 
beyond the limits of our skin," nor does it mean 
the same in each mentioned case. Often the 
environment is within the body. When we say 
we have a toothache, it certainly means that 
the vocal organs are functioning the response 
of the general somatic condition to a special 
environment centered in the tooth. Individual 
environments also frequently occur. From a 
large group of things we select only specially 
interesting features as material for speech and 
memory. For example, the brute mass of a 
football field and the players is first grossly 
cross-cut by the two sympathetic teams of 
"rooters" opposed to each other in the grand- 
stand; and again curiously cross-cut by any in- 

64 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

dividual witness whose special interests center 
in one or more of the padded giants in the turf. 
An account of the football game, if complete, 
would then be the sum-total of all spoken or 
unspoken judgments, emotional or otherwise, 
that those preparing for it, witnessing it, and 
remembering it would make. However com- 
plex the physical situation there might be, the 
psychological aspect would outdo it ten to one. 
To ask which of the football games as reported 
is the real one, has no meaning for psychology. 
It is the task of our analysis to determine the 
order in which things get known, as well as 
the succession of impulses which determine the 
selection for speech and recall of several items 
out of a possible multitude. 

15. It is clear that in the realm of psychol- 
ogy more newness continually develops than in 
any other field. As we develop from childhood 
to age we get a personality, a bias, a way of em- 
ploying the material of the cosmos in such a 
manner that there arise from our own nervous 
organization certain dependent sets of functions 
which point our doings in ways that are "new" 
with regard to the material they respond to. 
Within our own bodies, also, there are colonies 
of nerve fibres which act upon and are reacted 
to by other colonies, in such a way that refer- 

65 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ence cannot be made solely to the common, un- 
critical names for one's environment to explain 
why our actions are thus and so. This also 
must be kept clear : that if the responses to their 
objects by one nerve colony is of one kind, and 
the responses by another nerve colony is of 
another, that the responses of the first colony, 
say, — to its objects, — may be so modified by 
the intercolonial responses that the result will 
be "new" and unpredictable from the mere 
knowledge of the way in which either colony 
alone would have reacted to the situation. It 
is the task of analysis, again, to label correctly 
all the "new" responses, — those primes in the 
series of psychological events. 

16. Much perplexity often arises over the 
question of the position of things in mind. 
"Where is a tooth ache, especially its disagree- 
ability?" "Where is the pleasure of a good 
meal?" are typical of the questions sometimes 
asked. This question ultimately concerns the 
nature of series, and I submit this as an answer. 
Some series are in time and space, while some 
otners are not. Those in time have position 
in time and those in space have position in 
space, while those in both have two positions. 
But when one asks where the discomfort of a 
toothache is located, or where hope, fear and 

66 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

joy may be found during their office hours, the 
answer is that there is at least one more order 
than the temporal or spacial order in psychol- 
ogy, and that is the order of knowledge. ("For 
space and time are continuous, while knowledge 
is not.") Only this order is not independent, as 
are the orders of time and space, but dependent 
partly on them and partly also upon the logical, 
deductive orders of things, which are neither 
temporal nor spacial. For example, the vir- 
tuous kings of England, if named in the order 
of their virtue, would not perhaps come in the 
same succession as they did chronologically to 
the seat of the Confessor. The order of their 
virtue could not be deduced from this other 
order any more than the order of their sen- 
iority upon ascending the throne. The orders, 
or cross-sections, of these British monarchs 
would show no ordinal correlation. And when 
any other order than the spacial or temporal 
order is involved, "position" cannot mean 
something geographical, any more than the 
phrase "in my mind" needs to refer to the head 
or the bone-bound mass of wrinkled gray mat- 
ter within it. Now, the toothache is not in the 
front sidewalk, to be sure, nor is the pleasure 
of gourmandizing in the handle of the knife 
that carves the truffied grouse. In both of these 

67 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

cases we have series to consider, and if the 
toothache or the dinner-delight is anywhere, it 
is in that manifold which is defined either by 
the terms of tooth, nerves and rest of body; or 
grouse, unobtrusive waiter and the other fine 
business of eating. Its position in these com- 
plexes somewhat compares to the meaning of 
"never" in contrast to "now." 

17. There is but one more thing to which I 
wish to call attention before we pass on to the 
next chapter. It is the use and meaning of 
"and" in psychology. We shall find that a sen- 
sation as well as a perception, a sentiment, a 
will-act, a soul, is a complex, — a number of 
things more or less organized together. They 
bear to one another in psychology among oth- 
er things, the "and" relation. Now this "and" 
is one of the psychological simples mentioned 
before, — one of the things which is psycholog- 
ical and nothing else. It is the first one men- 
tioned, and it is to be expressly noted and filed 
away for reference that it is not a "noun," but 
a "conjunction." We shall get the verbs and 
adverbs by and by. Here we may see one of 
the points at which logic, psychology and gram- 
mar coincide, — namely the letters making the 
word "and." But spelling here serves a func- 
tion that analysis must undo. The grammat- 

68 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 

ical "and" is of course a special form of the 
logico-psychological "and," being exclusively 
neither nor all of both; it is something ele- 
mentally linguistic." The grammatical "and" 
is sometimes expressed by a comma. This 
again means a pause in the voice, or, logically, 
an enumeration without inference. Grammar- 
ians call this repetition, — as for example, "Hun- 
dreds and thousands of dead and wounded." 
Variation or difference with insinuations is an- 
other meaning; as "there are lawyers and law- 
yers." Or, the attributive relation may be 
poetically expressed, "thy fair and outward 
character," i. e., outwardly fair character." Se- 
quence is inferred, or causation, — "I say 'go,' 
and he goeth." It sometimes means ''or/* as in 
the expression, "taxable for state and county 
purposes." In the expression, "I shall try and 
learn," it means "in order to." In symbolic 
logic the same sign is used for both "or" and 
"and"; the interpretation and reading of the 
sign being dependent upon its place in the sub- 
ject or predicate. Now the use of "and" in 
psychology may, possibly, be any one of the 
above uses at times, but the peculiarly original 
psychological use of the conjunction "and" is 
as follows: Consciousness is both a content and 
a process, and the contents, which are all 

69 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

analysable into non-mental material as well as 
are the processes, exist together and arouse im- 
pulses in a way that is not found elsewhere. 
The combination, the organization of these con- 
tents and processes we shall call, for brevity, 
an exhibition of the ^'with-fof relation. And 
let us add that it is not mysterious. If a realis- 
tic psychology needs any justification, it will be 
found in the development of this principle 
throughout this book. 

Bibliography. 

Perry, R. B., "A Realistic Theory of Inde- 
pendence," in "The New Realism," by E. B. 
Holt and others. 

Spaulding, E. G., "A Defense of Analysis," 
in "The New Realism." 

Holt, E. B., "The Concept of Consciousness," 
especially Chapter X, "The Empirical Proper- 
ties of Consciousness." 



70 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

1. ". . . there are not sensations and 
perceptions and their objects. There are ob- 
jects, and when these are included in the mani- 
fold called consciousness they are called sen- 
sations and perceptions." . . . "In sensation 
the neutral qualities, the so-called 'secondary 
qualities,' come and go as more or less unre- 
lated elements: while in perception they enter 
and depart in groups — smaller or larger. Doubt- 
less few, if any, qualities (sensations) enter 
consciousness absolutely single: they too seem 
to come and go in larger or smaller masses. 
But . . . the term sensation is usually ap- 
plied to them so long as the mass of qualities 
that enter together has within itself little or no 
logical structure or unity, no internal relation- 
ship : while in perception the groups have some 
logical coherence." This again from Holt with 
many thanks. 

2. Why do we habitually say, "I have a sen- 
sation OF color"? Or why, again, do we as- 
sert our recollections OF people, our feelings 
OF sadness, our consciousness OF this or that? 
Is it because we feel a gulf deeply fixed be- 

71 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tween ourselves and this world of ours which 
so constantly stays with us? Or is it a defect 
of language, and has a little wall-eyed preposi- 
tion the power of dropping a veil over our eyes, 
thus making us like unto the Turkish ladies 
who are calamitously and at all times cut off 
from the bright realities? 

3. Two possible explanations are open and 
we shall consider them both, (a) The Lin- 
guistic approach. Usually such expressions can 
be avoided by the use of other words. "I have 
a sensation of blue," means something different, 
does it or not, from the expression, "I sense the 
blue object"? "I recall him," means what dif- 
ferent from, "I have a recollection of him"? 
"I feel sad," is or is not the same as to say, "I 
have a feeling of sadness"? Or when the psy- 
chologist says, "It is in my consciousness," does 
he not mean that he is conscious of it? These 
all seem to be the same thing in a different 
form, allopathic or homeopathic, just as you 
wish. But if language can be twisted in such 
a manner, then not in language itself can be 
found the solution. The OF-ness has as much 
right to be primary as does the more direct ex- 
pression. The problem is still unsolved, — it 
remains a dilemma. Let us see whether this 
antique dilemma hath not a third, rudimentary 

72 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

horn, the grasping of which will lead us per- 
manently out of the pinch. 

4. (h) That the thing may he a relayed 
form of consciousness does not solve the dif- 
ficulty. All consciousness might turn out to be 
r^-presentative, rather than immediate, the re- 
layings differing only in complexity. We shall 
then appeal to logic as our old standby. The 
names of things are not the things, which every 
one will gladly admit, for the traveler lost in 
the desert cannot slake his thirst by the repeti- 
tion of the word "water." If it had been so, 
the problem of the relief of the poor could never 
have been a university subject for which the 
student gets full credit. But to use the word 
"water" is not necessarily indicative that it is in 
the mouth of the user at the time. "Water" is 
the conventional English symbol for a liquid 
which, in some countries, is used to slake the 
thirst, — a word to which sensorial wetness per- 
taineth not. And the "meaning" of the word 
"water" is dependent in such a case upon what 
others will do when it is uttered. "Meaning," 
in psychology, at least, lies in what will be done 
in a situation involving the name of the thing 
meant. Meaning is therefore motor; it refers 
to functional sequences, and is an example of 
the "with-for" relation. Now, if words are re- 

73 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

lational, just as consciousness is relational, in 
that it is generated out of responses to an en- 
vironment by a nervous system, then the old 
bugaboo of re-presentation need no longer be 
of any trouble to us. Every idea consists of 
positionless parts or properties of a thing. The 
use of the preposition in such expressions as 
"feeling of" "consciousness of/' etc., simply in- 
dicates, — barring the linguistic fallacy, — that 
the thing so mentioned is one of the elements 
making up the conscious manifold, and nothing 
else. Otherwise, the expressions "unclear," "a 
minor element," or "sub-focal" provide for all 
cases in which it is ever properly used. The 
logic of relations thus accounts for certain ele- 
ments in genetic psychology, — only the psy- 
chological aspect in language frequently swal- 
lows up the logical one. For when the logical 
orders get distorted by the introspective con- 
sciousness, and are reinterpreted by way of it, 
they suffer the lapse of their scientific validity. 
The introspective order is not the logical one, 
and the introspective consciousness is not in any 
sense the primary, immediate fact of conscious- 
ness. It is belated consciousness, and when too 
often referred to is indicative of an incipient 
division in personality. 

5. The reason, then, for attaching validity 
74 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

to the expression, "consciousness o/," is one of 
"informal" logic. But this does not apply to 
those relational states in which, as Professor 
Perry says, we "surround and surmount our 
past, incomplete experience." To say "I judge 
that I was wrong," is certainly a case of "con- 
sciousness of"; but the point to be made is that 
the "o/-ness" in such an expression ipso facto 
defines its own non-immediacy or non-focality 
in consciousness. Furthermore, the point is to 
be made that one cannot have this o/'-relation 
occurring twice in succession. There is no "of- 
consciousness-o/" anything, if by the expression 
we mean to link co-ordinate states of conscious- 
ness together. I may recall "that" my uncle 
mortgaged his house "when" / was a mere child, 
but the Fs and the my are very different things 
each time, bearing in psychology a subordinate 
relation to each other, and a non-reciprocal re- 
lation as well. Bluntly spoken, naively taken, 
these expressions have nothing dangerous in 
them, but the naive is not the systematic except 
by a coup de Dieu. The logic of introspection 
is informal logic: as Matthew Arnold would 
say, it "is eloquent, is well, — but is not true!" 

6. We have been using the term conscious- 
ness as something already built up and guar- 
anteed b}^ responses, but not as something not 

75 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

yet functioned for or organized out of nature. 
Introspection is not the primary, immediate 
fact of consciousness because it is found only 
in a consciousness set a-brewing, and in this 
brew we find ourselves long before we first 
make wise inquiry after the nature of our being. 
For the "introspectional feltness" of a thing is 
no more sufficient to explain the origin or per- 
sistence of a thing, than the condition of being 
a debtor, will ipso facto satisfy one's creditors. 
Now, having cleared the logical grounds of 
all expected difficulties, we are ready to begin 
a systematic analysis of consciousness. We 
shall first treat of sensations and perceptions, 
and then of responses and meanings, including 
speech. Next we shall see what emotions and 
feelings are, following this with an explanation 
of interest, purpose and the creative faculties. 
Finally, there will be a brief but wide study of 
the ramifications of psychology throughout our 
practical, daily life. For psychological things 
are what we have to live with, if we live at all; 
indeed, other than by a perspicuous use of psy- 
chology, there is no escape from certain an- 
noyances but by death, and this latter business 
is often a great inconvenience to our relatives. 
For them psychology remains the problem, sur- 
viving even if we do not. 

76 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

7. This is the program: First to analyse 
objects from the standpoint of their being 
sensed, and then to analyse the physiological 
sensing process. By this means we shall answer 
all three of the questions regarding conscious- 
ness, — what, how, and why. From the first 
standpoint it will be seen that there are two 
kinds of properties or attributes which give the 
sensation its thinghood: essential and inessen- 
tial. These will be dealt with in the above order. 
Every one of the essential properties at least 
will be furthermore seen to be a series, and the 
sensation to be a cross-section of those terms 
of each such series which, while the sensing 
process is going on, are contingent in time and 
space. But corresponding terms in each series 
need not be present at the same time. For ex- 
ample, shapes, colors and distances are all 
series, but the moon which is at a certain point 
on the linear space series distant from the ob- 
server may be at no comparable point in the 
shape or color series, nor yet in the bigness 
series. Even some of these series are prime to 
each other. Furthermore, while the terms of 
these series making the sensation are contin- 
gent, they need have none but the loosest func- 
tional interdependence, not yet having the 
structure requisite for the formation of per- 

77 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ceptions. It is thence that some of the in- 
formal logic of certain kinds of consciousness 
is derived. It is not here, however, that one 
finds any original "consciousness stuff"; for 
these various series are not generated by the 
consciousness relation, even if one should bol- 
ster up his argument by saying that continued 
fixation of a color appears to reduce its bright- 
ness. 

8. Thus sensations have no substance, — 
they are not the ultimate brickbats of existence. 
But, added to this, two w^arnings. This does not 
mean that we, as human beings, are possessed 
of a special stability or specific gravity which, 
by comparison, makes the rest of the world in- 
constant, filmy and tottering; nor that when I 
rap on the table before me and say: "This is 
one of my realities," that I deny that the table 
is hard. Absolutely the contrary, beyond cavil 
and argument! A series can well be a series of 
hardnesses as well as one of preferences or di- 
vorces, and with this statement the philos- 
ophical program of this book must close. 

9. Consciousness was defined for us as both 
a content and a process; some of its elements 
are likewise of this twofold character, and sen- 
sations are such elements. For instance, if 
someone holds up a patch of red in front of me 

78 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

and I see it, the red color is my content of con- 
sciousness, while the action of the retinal nerves 
guarantees the continuance of the sensing proc- 
ess. The retinal nerves do not become red, nor 
is it a reddish neural process which is going on, 
— it is a red-sensing process. However ,on the 
content side, we have a red sensation, for while 
there is a functional relation between the neural 
action and the patch of color, there is an iden- 
tical one between the object and the content of 
consciousness. In our discussion of visual sen- 
sations further on, it will be seen why, in the 
case of the color-blind person, the content is 
always, regardless of optical defects, to be as- 
serted of the object. For psychology, an object 
is something that can stimulate, just as a rubber 
ball is something that will bounce, but the com- 
mon name of the object is by no means a suf- 
ficient catalogue of its functional possibilities. 
If one were to enumerate all the things a certain 
object would do, he w^ould then, but not before 
then, have a respectable estimate of what a 
sensation is. To completely exhaust it would 
require that it be, first exhibited; second, 
enumerated as to its properties; and lastly, de- 
fined as to its reaction possibilities in all situa- 
tions where its eff'ects made a diff'erence to the 
outcome. 

79 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

10. But no dismay need accompany the 
reading of this last statement. The cases where 
it does make a difference are limited and 
known; at least if not fully known, known as 
to inveterate trend. The series has been plotted 
to its bounds, and whatever we lack is a term 
or two within the known range, if, indeed, we 
lack anything. Eighteen such terms, or attrib- 
utes of sensation exist; seven of these are es- 
sential, while the remaining eleven are inessen- 
tial. The whole eighteen never exist at the 
same time, it being a temporal impossibility, 
but whatever of them do exist at any instant 
or pulse of time, define the sensation for us, 
and at the same time exhaust it. Some of them 
are temporal, others spacial attributes; some 
are neither spacial nor temporal, but quantita- 
tive or qualitative instead: while all of them 
refer either to the content or the functional side 
of consciousness. Membership in one of these 
classes does not exclude the possibility of mem- 
bership in another, but no single attribute is 
found in all six classes. 

11. The Essential Attributes of Sensation. 
(1) Modality. This is a functional attribute, 

referring to the sense field operating. There 
are no nameless sensations; every object is 
functioned for by some specialized group of 

80 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

cells, — the organ and the intra-neural connec- 
tions; sight is one modality, sound is another, 
pain is another, and so on. There is, further- 
more, no transition possible from one sense 
field to another; a prime relation exists between 
them. And while modality is functional, it is 
not quantitative, but qualitative. Ether waves, 
which produce lights, may be just another kind 
or degree of vibrations from those producing 
sounds, but they are even thus multifarious 
enough in their quantitative or formal relations 
to be called qualitatively different. Modality 
is not spacial or temporal either, — it is qualita- 
tively functional, and that alone. 

(2) Quality. This attribute refers to such 
things as colors, tastes, smells, tones, and the 
like, for every sensation is not only taken up 
by some sense organ, but within each modal 
range are various qualities; in some cases, such 
as tastes, very few, while in the case of colors, 
exceedingly many. Qualities are intra-modal, 
and as such, exhibit transition in some cases, 
but not in others. Thus a saline solution may, 
if the quantity of the solvent be increased, be- 
come a burning sensation, but never sugary or 
sour. Likewise, with the decrease in the pro- 
portion of the solvent, no other taste will be 
induced when the salty one ceases to be ef- 

81 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

fectual. Nevertheless, pure distilled water 
tastes slightly sweet. Quality is of course a 
non-spacial and non-temporal affair; it is a 
physical and meta-physical question as to 
whether it is ultimately quantitative. Ulti- 
mately for psychology, however, it is not. 

(3) Intensity. This word refers both to 
content and function in sensation. Every sen- 
sation has its own specific intensity, — it is some- 
where in the qualitatively intensive series. This 
series is non-temporal and non-spacial. Inten- 
sities cannot be added together arithmetically to 
produce a sum, just as no number of undersea- 
soned dishes at a dinner will give the requisite 
flavor to it, no more than will the addition of 
pinks give a crimson. Intensity is always 
unique. We may not be able to tell how bright 
a color is, nor how intense the toothache, but 
the naive speech reaction is pragmatic and not 
specific, nor are all conscious contents open to 
steady inspection. As a functional affair, the 
intensity of sensation refers to the vigor of the 
transmission of the nervous impulse, — we are 
stunned by the detonation of the ordnance, or 
shocked by the electric current. Or, again, at 
the rose-carnival our own entries were not so 
red as those of another, though we once thought 
them superlatively so. Here, intensity is quan- 

82 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 
titative; in many cases measurable by galvano- 
metric methods. But it is not spacial, and not 
in point of rise and fall, temporal. 

(4) Latent-period. This term is functional, 
and means the time elapsing between the ap- 
plication of the stimulus and the reaction upon 
it by the sensing organism. It is, therefore, 
solely a temporal phenomenon. There are also 
two kinds of latency, — focally conscious and 
sub-conscious, as follows: Rain falling on a 
sleeping soldier's upturned face on the battle- 
field might cause him to cover it without awak- 
ening, — without his being brought to the notic- 
ing or naming consciousness. This would be, of 
course, reflex action occurring after a sub-con- 
scious latent period. If the soldier awoke, 
knowing and naming the rain, to defend him- 
self from the elements, he would be said to be 
focally conscious of the affair after a latency 
ending in focal consciousness of the situation. 
In both of these cases, the latency would be de- 
fined in temporal terms, — i. e., as a time be- 
tween the mechanical or chemical onset, and 
the movements of defense or speech, or both. 
Latency has much to do with intensity of the 
functional kind: it is, caeteris paribus, in de- 
fined situations, inversely proportional to it. 



83 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
But the intensities must be incremental to show 
this. 

(5) Another derivative of intensity is the 
Threshold. Threshold is the functional ter- 
minus ad quern of the latent period. If, in the 
above case, the sleeper had moved to cover his 
face from the rain, some threshold of arousal 
would have been reached, the stimulation would 
have proved effective, and the with-for relation 
become operative. While being at the end of a 
temporal series, it is not itself a temporal mat- 
ter, but rather a prime in that series. Thres- 
holds are, indeed, measurable, but not usually 
by means of definite terms in the number series. 
Sometimes they are defined, as by Titchener, as 
those points on the intensive scale (mechanical 
measurements) where the sensation is aroused 
(noticeably, self-consciously) 50% of the time. 
This, however, is the better way to define them, 
— as having membership in a class of positions 
in the intensive series between those points 
where the sensation is noticeably aroused and 
those where it is not noticeably aroused; a de- 
cent illustration of which would be the area 
between two intersecting parabolas in the same 
plane. It is not a point, but an area, not such 
a quantity as 8, but rather 8 as any place be- 
tween 7 and 9: the threshold is thus shown to 

84 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

be a quantitative tendency. Of thresholds there 
are two kinds, the upper and the lower. They 
are at opposite ends of the intensive series, and 
usually exist for both focal- and sub-conscious- 
ness in every modality. But the operation of 
the with-for relation certainly largely depends 
upon the focally-conscious aspect of the thres- 
hold, or limen, as it is often called. 

(6) Duration is the chief temporal attrib- 
ute of sensation. It can be applied to the 
period of time between the onset of the stim- 
ulus and its withdrawal, to the temporal extent 
of sub-consciousness, or to the focal-conscious- 
ness of the sensation. It is also functionally 
important for the intensity, considered as a 
functional attribute. We likewise speak cor- 
rectly of the duration of the latent period. 
Peculiarly psychological is the report of the 
duration of a state of consciousness, in contrast, 
but not contradiction, to the amount of time in- 
volved in the physical presence of the excitant. 

(7) The chief spacial attribute is Extensity. 
As an elemental attribute of sensation this cor- 
responds very much to qualitative intensity. A 
pin prick is "smaller" in extensity than is the 
touch of a blunt pencil point; a toothache is 
also usually "smaller" than a sensation of nau- 
sea. It is not alone the functioning organ 

85 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

which makes this difference, — not alone the 
knowledge of the size of stimulus or organ, but 
an original and irreducible attribute of the sen- 
sation itself. Now, the extensive magnitudes 
are not absolute, but relative; they are a series, 
a scale, and we always make the estimation 
by employing terms of comparison. We can- 
not tell how big a sensation is, nor how much 
bigger it is than another one, but the psychol- 
ogical number system is of this kind, and one 
must be forewarned of it. It may well be, also, 
that the space of psychology is not Euclidian 
space, but a space very like that of a fourth or 
even an nth dimension. That it exists cozily 
along with Euclidian space, however, is scarce- 
ly to be denied. 

12. To resume and further elaborate these 
seven essential attributes of sensation. One of 
them is spacial, extensity; two, temporal, — 
latency and duration; the rest are neither spa- 
cial nor temporal, — modality, quality, intensity, 
and threshold. As regards content, we have 
quality, intensity and extensity; as regards 
function, we have modality, intensity, latency, 
threshold, and duration. Intensity was also 
shown to be related to both content and func- 
tion, while the functional character of other 
things, such as duration and latent-period, may 

86 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

frequently tend to induce qualitative differences 
in the content. As attributes of sensation, these 
seven terms illustrate the attribute-thing rela- 
tion, mentioned and discussed in the preceding 
chapter. Duration, linked with intensity, func- 
tionally construed, as well as latency, refers to 
the causal relation, including as both do the 
temporal aspect. Now, while objects are ma- 
terial, none of these attributes are material, and 
yet an object sensed is often a material object. 
But just as physical and chemical analysis finds 
no brickbat-matter in the universe, neither does 
psychology: which, however, does not preclude 
that matter may not be the coagulation of non- 
material things. I fling the material stone at 
the material cat, but on the levels of physical 
and psychological analysis, qualities only tend 
to displace each other in the above act. The 
practical cat dies, let us admit; but the cat of 
analysis is merely redistributed : the stone is his 
passport to non-Euclidian space. 

13. We now pass to a consideration of the 
inessential attributes of sensation. The rubric, 
inessential, does not mean that when they are 
present, they do not contribute emphatically to 
the then status of the sensation. They do, and 
as attributes they are constitutive in no small 
degree of the with-for relationship of the item 

87 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

of consciousness called sensation. A harmless 
analogy is the following: A household may 
consist of from two to n members, only two of 
which are essential; but the children, relatives, 
visitors and spungers all contribute to it, even 
if by hunger and fracas alone. In the follow- 
ing sections we shall take up the nature of these 
attributes from the standpoint of content, func- 
tion, temporal and spacial significance, as well 
as relate them to the essential attributes just 
considered. 

(1) Summation is the term used to indi- 
cate a number of applications of a stimulus be- 
fore an arousal occurs. It is a temporal ele- 
ment, and functional. The heartless fly bites 
the sleeper's nose a dozen times before he 
awakens. Each stimulus, as a mechanical or 
chemical unit, is in itself insufficient to provoke 
the arousal, but as the result of repetitions near 
enough together so that the organ does not re- 
cover between times, summation is produced, 
the threshold is passed and the with-for rela- 
tion firmly established in the defense. Bare 
intensity refers to one application of the stim- 
ulus; summation, on the other hand, means 
many (usually identical) applications. Sum- 
mation plays a large part in quotidian affairs; 
"till seven times" is an expression based 

88 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

upon it, as well as the fact that a baseball team 
loses heart after the fifth or sixth scccessive de- 
feat of the season, though their playing all 
along may have been equally poor. The sleep- 
meter that jangles us back into life in the morn- 
ing, the final yielding of the maiden sister to 
the fatality of spinsterhood, — these are both 
summation. To some persons there seems to 
be a qualitative aspect to summation differing 
from that of an equable, supra-liminal sensa- 
tion. It is more extensive, they say, and of a 
texture more subtle and more elusive; if so, it 
would be another case of psychological new- 
ness. As such, this "element" is adjectival. 

(2) The after-image is that part of the 
object which survives the temporal extent of 
its application to the sense organ. The phy- 
sicist witnesses summation in the number of 
shots a piece of ordnance will stand; he would 
likewise find positive after-images in echoes, 
at least in so far as acoustical effects are con- 
cerned. The "kick" of a gun might also be a 
sort of negative after-effect. Both of these are 
illustrated in psychological material, for there 
are two kinds of sensorial after-images, positive 
and negative. If we look fixedly at the yellow 
sun, upon turning away, greenish-blue blobs 
pepper the landscape. But if we gaze less long 

89 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

at an illumination of a milder intensity, the 
original colors are usually more faithfully pre- 
served in the neural momentum. The after- 
image is qualitative and quantitative, depend- 
ing upon many things, namely: intensity, qual- 
ity, duration, extensity of the stimulus, and in 
pathological cases upon emotionality, intricacy 
of the situation, and even upon habitual lying 
or truth-telling. The after-image is not an il- 
lusion, but consists, in vision, at least, of but 
the shape and color of the object sensed, which, 
by the way, have no position, and may be any- 
where. 

(3) No sense organ functions without 
chemical changes within it, and when they be- 
come such as to impede the transmission of the 
impulses throughout the system. Exhaustion 
takes place. This is not the same as fatigue, 
which will be discussed under emotion. Ex- 
haustion is a function of intensity, duration, 
extensity and certain plain qualities, specially 
smells. Curiously enough, also, the sense-or- 
gans are attuned to the reception of just so 
much stimulation, teleologically or not, just as 
either disputant avers. Leaving before the sym- 
phony is finished, drowsing through the mis- 
sionary sermon, sleep, death, quitting college 
before the degree is conferred, — such cases 

90 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

usually exist by virtue of a complex in which 
it is more or less nuclear. We shall discuss its 
physiological side in a few moments. 

(4) Adaptation appears to be a kind of 
partial exhaustion, and as such is a derivative 
of intensity; it is temporal, and in its different 
aspects, qualitative. In exhaustion the fuse is 
burned out; in adaptation there is a shunting of 
the current to a transmission circuit of exceed- 
ingly low potential. I call adaptation those 
cases of partial exhaustion where the sensation 
can be restored through attending to it or ex- 
pecting it; exhaustion exhibits no such resurg- 
ences. The wearing of clothes, glasses, and the 
like, marriage, accepting life or death in the 
trenches, failing to notice how bad mannered 
we are, are cases of adaptation. Perhaps the 
"ship that found herself" illustrates it, as well 
as the fact that machinery runs better after a 
few hundred pulses than it did at first. But 
here the analogies run rather to seed and so 
we shall migrate to the next topic. 

(5) Inhibition is a case where, for example, 
but one of two or more possible objects of a 
group gets functioned. It may follow exhaus- 
tion or adaptation, and appears to be a deriva- 
tive of intensity. While intent upon our tele- 
phone conversation we do not notice that the 

91 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
fire-engine iias clanged noisily down the street, 
though the sound it makes is physically in- 
tenser than the voice over the wire. Again, dis- 
agreeable table companions keep us from en- 
joying an otherwise satisfactory meal; or the 
fear of an impending final examination abol- 
ishes the memory of things we were positive we 
had at instant recall. Inhibition is a temporal 
and quantitative affair, and in psychology plays 
a considerable role. Indeed, one author, 
Muensterberg, regards it as the central fact of 
psychology. 

(6) When two or more sensations blend so 
that each to a certain extent loses its independ- 
ent character, the resultant is called a Fusion. 
This is a case of both psychological and logical 
newness. Fusion is both a process and a con- 
tent. On the side of extensity it is sometimes 
easily comparable and again curiously incom- 
parable to the elements from which it was de- 
rived. The discussion of the various sense 
fields will illustrate this. Fusion is partial, mu- 
tual inhibition; wherever it occurs, it is very 
likely to become adapted, and often seems to 
be a sop thrown to exhaustion. It will be seen 
later on to be one of the integral parts of per- 
ception. Language itself is a case of fusion. 
We do not think of the separate letters of words, 

92 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

but of the words as a whole; again, orange is 
obtainable by mixing red and yellow pigments, 
but it goes by a simple name and usually passes 
by unanalysed; the doctrine of the trinity was 
a theological fusion. Fusion and confusion are 
interesting to compare, — they seem to have 
many common parts. The latter term, how- 
ever, refers to the meaning-side of the situa- 
tion, — the degree of confusion implying the 
amount of labor it would take to make order 
gi'ow where chaos did before. 

(7) When, again, sensations appear to- 
gether and neither inhibit each other nor fuse, 
w^e have a case of Contrast. This is a qualita- 
tive and sometimes a spacial attribute; it is like- 
wise often a derivative of intensity. The chef 
applies chemical fusion to the making of the 
salad, w^hile the hors d'oeuvre which preceded 
was concocted for the sake of contrast to it. 
The uses to which contrast effects are put are 
apparently unlimited, and yet quite closely re- 
lated to certain definite principles of order. It 
would be more "stunning" to wear two gloves 
each of a different color, but w^e prefer in such 
a case bilateral chromatic symmetry; in fash- 
ions again, suits all of a piece are not disdained 
in favor of polychromatic clothing whether or 
no. Besides this, we may be passionately fond of 

93 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

change in many directions, and yet always eat 
the same breakfast, or walk to business down 
the same street. But where contrast effects are 
produced, each of the components more or less 
emphasizes the effect of the other. It is thus 
a case of the opposite of fusion in its two prin- 
cipal aspects. It is curious to note in what 
special ways it differs from inhibition. 

(8) Clearness is predicated of the content 
side of a sensation when, in the midst of other 
sensations, it defines them in terms of itself. 
Thus it takes a relational aspect to provide the 
existence of this attribute. As we never get 
but one sensation in consciousness, there is al- 
ways more or less clearness in the cross-section. 
Clearness and inhibition are closely related in 
this way, — the inhibiting sensation may be 
clear, the clear sensation always inhibits. To 
accomplish this, the clearness takes on the tem- 
poral aspect of duration, and through duration 
the inhibition gets functioned. In point of de- 
fining the context in terms of itself, this at- 
tribute has important bearings on perception. 
If it leads to inhibition, it relates itself to in- 
tensity; while, as it frequently appears to come 
from emotional backgrounds, it often loses its 
purely original qualitative and content aspect 
on this account. 

94 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

(9) Vividness is a compound of clearness 
and inhibition simultaneously occurring. Clear- 
ness defines the background in terms of itself, 
— in vividness we have a lost background, and 
an increase of intensity due not to the inhibit- 
ory crowding-out of the other contents, but of 
the sudden wilting of the conflicting functions. 
Crudely, it could be compared with a land- 
slide to a certain political candidate by virtue 
(or vice?) of the withdrawal of his opponents, 
rather than to his own efforts in spite of them. 
This latter would rather be a case of inhibi- 
tion. Physicists are acquainted with a half- 
brother to this attribute in some of the phenom- 
ena of refraction. In psychology, I am con- 
vinced, the index of refraction in the case of 
vividness is frequently emotional. 

(10) The attributes of sensation may have 
no position alone, but the cross-section of their 
series takes position with reference to the ob- 
ject and the sensing organ: we call this the 
Local-sign (or Local-signature). I am touched 
with a pencil point upon variously functioning 
organs, and the name of the sense field comes 
with the touch (or other) sensations. We al- 
ways report things as being somewhere, — not 
only in the case of sensations which arouse a 
unique quality upon various skin areas, — but so 

95 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

inveterately do we apply perspective to the 
contents of consciousness, that all things seem 
to have a place. And, in one sense, they do; 
dreams are in dreamland just as fairies are in 
fairyland. But, on the other hand, just as the 
non-spatial attributes of sensation are position- 
less, so are many of their combinations into 
things or wholes; especially is this true of the 
part-whole masses, of which dreams and fairies 
as well as logarithmic functions are examples. 
(11) Some sensations are pleasant or un- 
pleasant, and these terms signify Feeling-tone. 
This is an originally qualitative aspect, and 
nothing more; but there are grades of it, loosely 
called, for want of a better name, intensities. 
The nature of feeling is not as obscure as the 
dissertations upon it, — it is a function of cer- 
tain equilibria, — neural, muscular, sensorial, 
and the like, — several variables, whose ex- 
pected quotient is found to shrink in a sur- 
prising manner. For without the proper regard 
for the psychological plus, only nonsense arises 
from the addition of certain elements in the 
conscious cross-section. Psychology furnishes 
the basis for the empirical status of the irra- 
tional numbers in the above case, just as in 
fusions we find that to add is to subtract. In 
these, as in other cases to be met with, nascitur 

96 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ridiciilus mus is the authorized shipman's card. 
We are sometimes found furthering or hinder- 
ing those sensation masses including pleasant 
or unpleasant feeling-tones respectively, but 
not always, for usually displeasure is more 
heavily socially subsidized than is pleasure, as 
is the case with error and untruth. These two 
feeling-tones are not incompatible psychological 
opposites, and when found together, they need 
neither fuse wdth nor inhibit each other, which 
is a curiosity. We have discussed the "posi- 
tion" of pleasure in a previous paragraph, and 
those authors who interpret feeling as indicative 
of the fact that the sensation to w^hich it per- 
tains is referred to the body rather than to the 
"external" world, are in error. What a dis- 
mal time others than ourselves must be hav- 
ing, according to this bit of wisdom! 

14. The table on the following page will 
illustrate the relations of both the essential and 
inessential attributes to one another. 



97 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 





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Threshold 

Duratipn 

Extensity 


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Quality 

Intensity 

Threshold 

Extensity 




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Intensity 
Latent-period 
Threshold 
Duration 




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98 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 
15. These eighteen attributes are the stuff 
of which sensation is made. They are attrib- 
utes, rather than parts, and illustrate the attrib- 
ute-thing relationship mentioned and defined in 
the previous chapter. As such, they make up 
sensation, for sensation, apart from their con- 
stituting, contributing relationship, does not oc- 
cur. Thus it is incorrect to say that *'a sensa- 
tion varies," for these attributes are all series, 
and as such alter in their changing the nature 
of the sensation they constitute instead of being 
altered by it. Sensational consciousness varies 
with its object, but, by virtue of our function- 
ing a larger environment than that of the bare 
object of sense, reports upon its variation are 
obtained. From this it is likewise perceived that 
what the physicist means by "object" and what 
the psychologist means by it are apparently dif- 
ferent things. In psycholog>% however, we use 
the word stimulus to indicate the physicist's 
"object." Sensation is more than stimulus. 
Sensation is the object, and what it will do; or, 
in other words, the psychologist's "object" is 
the content and functions of a consciousness 
when within receptive range of the physicist's 
"object" or stimulus. For neither can all of 
these attributes occur at the same instant of 
time, nor does the identity of the sensation with 

99 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

the object exhaust it. Surely the stimulus, as 
a physical datum, will affect other physical 
data in a way that differs from its directly af- 
fecting a nervous system; or it may have chem- 
ical properties, or a geological system to sup- 
port. But in either case, the sensation is iden- 
tical with whatever of the object is material for 
psychology. Series and properties only delimit 
the fields of the various sciences. 
Questions on the foregoing: 

1. Enumerate three common cases of 
adaptation and three of exhaustion not men- 
tioned in the text. To what sort of stimuli are 
they referred ? Tell in each case why you think 
the one attribute appears instead of the other. 

2. "Quality" is under the heading "qualita- 
tive" in the above table. Can you suggest a 
better term than the latter in order that the 
same word need not be used in two senses? 

16. I propose now to indicate what the 
nervous system has to do with sensation. Let 
me first lay down the principle that neural ac- 
tion is concerned more with the functions of 
consciousness than with its content. To be sure, 
we should never see yellow without a physiolog- 
ical eye, nor taste lemon without a tongue, 
but physiological psychology is the science of 
the functional maintenance of the content of 

100 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

consciousness rather than something concerned 
with the question of why we see yellow instead 
of red or taste lemon rather than lemonade. 
For the qualities of the content are implicit in 
any neural action at all, while the functional and 
quantitative series do not follow such an un- 
eventful history. This may sound far from 
obvious, to say the least of it, and yet the whole 
history of psychology is befuddled with bulle- 
tins from Paddock, aggravating in their gloomy 
references to that moist bundle of strands with- 
in our bodies known as the nervous system, in 
which sensation, perception, emotion and rea- 
son were said to keep a heirarchy of thrones 
w^hose exact location was a perpetual discom- 
fiture to the invading investigator. To be spe- 
cific, there are, for example, but four simple 
taste qualities, while there are nine functional 
attributes of each of them. Now responses to 
the chemical stimuli known as tastes are re- 
stricted to these four qualities, but not in any 
way so attached to the functionally quantitative 
series of sensational attributes. Response, be- 
ing a process, is therefore superlatively con- 
cerned with functional attributes: and to this 
we shall direct our attention. 

17. A schematic representation of the nerv- 
ous system would incline toward the shape of a 

101 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

funnel, the large end of which is located in the 
skull. Thence, thinning down, to the base of 
the spine, it ends as a notable, separate struc- 
ture. It is, therefore, almost entirely posterior 
to the countenance. Just as visually we walk 
about headless, so we are never aware of the 
nerves as such. But from this central, funnel- 
like nervous system, there are prolonged in- 
numerable and immensely complicated bundles 
of fibres, ramifying to all parts of the body, 
and varying from a fraction of an inch to five 
or six feet in length. Functionally, the mass 
of the nervous system does not assist us in un- 
derstanding it. It is best regarded as a sys- 
tematic set of strands, called cells. Let us be 
emphatic here, however, and take notice that 
the word "cell" does not mean a little, roundish 
affair. The cells of the nervous system are 
long, tiny strands, contrasting in shape with 
bone and other cells in the same way that a tall 
flag-pole contrasts with a chopping block. The 
functional construction goes farther. The 
physiological unit of response is not a single 
cell, but a set of at least three such long fibres, 
articulating in such a way that a stimulation, 
say, from the surface of the body will be car- 
ried as an impulse along all three of them in 
linear succession, and arouse at the end the 

102 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

release of energy required to make the stimulus 
effective. Such a linear series of nerve cells 
or fibres is called a reflex arc, and consists of 
three parts (the three cells) as follows: recept- 
or, conductor and effector. The receptor starts 
with or in the sense organ, and extends to some 
part of the central nervous system, — brain or 
spinal cord, — where it ends as a fibre. But 
functionally it continues in the conductor, which 
interlaces it with the effector, whose further end 
is attached to a muscle by means of a little pad 
or end-plate. The action of this response 
mechanism is usually more useful to study than 
are pictorial representations of it, since they 
are all idealized. The best way to understand 
the scheme is to procure some nice animal, kill 
it, and trace out some special set of nerve fibres; 
for by this means alone the curious, angular 
character of the nerve-path can be appreci- 
ated. 

18. The cell is primarily a white fibre. 
Somewhere along the fibre will be found a cell- 
body, colored gray; the term "gray matter" in- 
dicates that the cell-bodies are on the surface 
of the brains while below the surface in the 
spinal cord. There are about eleven thousand 
million of these nerve cells in the human body, 
each of which derives its nourishment from its 

103 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

own gray cell-body. They thus communicate 
mipulses, but not food. The nerve strand has 
two sheaths, an inner or myelin sheath, and an 
outer, called the neurilemma. The function of 
these concern electro-physiology, however, 
rather than our own science. Special psycho- 
logical interest attaches to the appearance and 
function of the physical termination of the 
nerve strands, one of which is the end-brush, the 
other, the dendrites. It will be noticed that the 
names are similes, and as such explain nothing 
functional. The end-brush of one fibre meets 
the dendrites of another, or aborizes with it; 
and right at this juncture psychology finds its 
chief interest in the nervous system. This is 
not to say that latency, for example, is uncon- 
nected with the rate of the nervous impulse, 
which makes it impossible for the "speed of 
thought" to be more than one or two hundred 
metres per second. Nor is it unimportant that 
the nervous action is chemical rather than elec- 
trical, even though the action of the cell is ac- 
companied by electrical phenomena detectable 
by a galvanometer, and that there is chemical 
substance freed by the nervous action of re- 
sponse. Important as these are, they concern 
not intimately the conscious cross-section. But 
the fact that the change of the direction of the 

104 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

current through this neural arc is irreversible, 
and that it proceeds from sense organ down 
the receptor fibre, through the dendrites of that 
fibre across to the end-brush of the conducting 
fibre, and so on to the end-plate of a muscle 
ready to be aroused into changes of form, elas- 
ticity and the like, — this point is so important 
for psychology that we shall take it up in con- 
siderable detail. It is, indeed, the backbone 
of our knowing and doing. 

19. Reflex action is the occupation of the 
reflex arcs. When one touches ofT a charged 
Ley den jar, incalculably more energy is dis- 
charged from the jar than was contained in the 
mechanical connecting of the two poles by the 
discharging wire. The release of energy in ex- 
ploding dynamite far overtops the mechanical 
blow from the percussion cap. These are help- 
ful analogies in considering reflexes. Reflex 
action means that more energy is discharged 
from the arc than was imparted to the organ- 
ism by the stimulus. It also means that the 
"end eff'ect is mediated by a conductor, itself in- 
capable of mediating that particular end efTect." 
Furthermore, in all animals having a compli- 
cated nervous system, we find the reflexes de- 
fining the environment in point of being specifi- 
cally and selectively excitable. Some respond 

105 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

but to grades of temperature, others to lights, 
still others to sounds, or to mechanical, chem- 
ical, electrical and other effects; and thus by 
their cross-sectioning the environment, unite in 
forming that which we call consciousness. 
There are, of course, other responses, such as, 
for example, those which calls from starving In- 
dia would provoke, but these are not simple 
reflexes. According to recent investigators, the 
difference between the higher and the lower 
animals, insofar as neural action is concerned, 
lies in the fact that the unicellular organisms 
take but two chapters in physiology to exhaust 
them, — one on surface, and the other on internal 
phenomena, — while multicellular organisms 
supply a third chapter on intercellular physiol- 
ogy by virtue of intercellular deposits. Now 
when th^se deposits are solid (e. g., bone) we 
have mechanical or lever operations to con- 
sider; when they are liquid, we have chemical; 
and when, lastly, the intercellular connections 
are by virtue of real, living protoplasmic masses, 
whose business it is to connect, intercommunica- 
tion becomes possible by reflex action. Now 
we can see why the foregiven analogies of the 
Leyden jar and the dynamite are going to prove 
psychologically inadequate. And yet mechan- 



106 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ics has a finger in reflex action as will forth- 
with appear. 

20. In the succeeding paragraphs, until we 
come to the detailed relating of the attributes 
of sensation to the action of the nervous sys- 
tem, I shall draw largely upon the work of C. 
S. Sherrington and others, as given in his "In- 
tegrative Action of the Nervous System," in 
which, by the way, is recorded the most signif- 
icant information upon physiological psychol- 
ogy that has appeared for many centuries. The 
student will profit largely by studying some 
parts of this book in detail in connection with 
this present chapter. "A sense organ is a recep- 
tive surface." From whatever parts of the body 
a reflex can be elicited, nerve fibres run to the 
conductor involved in the response, and those 
parts are the sense organ for that reflex. "The 
eye is a glorified heat spot, the ear a glorified 
touch spot." The long and eventful history of 
evolution traces the contraction of those sense 
fields receptive to ether and air vibrations to 
certain restricted areas, furthermore formed 
into organs which lie half embedded under 
apertures in the skin, neither strictly within nor 
on the surface of the body. Of stimuli that 
will excite the reflex chain implicit with the 
presence of a sensory surface there are four 

107 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

kinds. The first and largest class are the ef- 
fective stimuli, by which is meant all means, 
mechanical, thermal, chemical, etc., that will 
start neural action along the arc. Of these ef- 
fective stimuli, however, some are adequate, or 
those to which the organ is normally attuned, 
such as sight to the eye, sound to the ear, and 
so on; while others are inadequate (let us say 
for true perceptions) such as a blow on the eye, 
or a foreign substance in the ear. All other 
stimuli are ineffective, that is, cause no arousal 
whatever, such as a beam of moonlight stream- 
ing into the ear. Considered from the stand- 
point of modality, the sensory reflexes define a 
modality of adequate stimuli only, the blow on 
the eye being a mechanical jar, transmitted to 
the optic nerve not by the retina but by a se- 
quence of concussions through the coats and 
liquids of the eye-ball. The sensory surfaces 
are thus selective. Sherrington reports that the 
plantar reflex of the brainless dog and the pinna 
reflex in the cat can be elicited by only mechan- 
ical stimuli. Electrical are wholly ineffective. 
As a last general word on the receptive sur- 
faces, it is found that if we consider such field 
as that whole collection of points on the skin 
from which an identical reflex may be elicited, 
that a weak stimulus in the center of the field 

108 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

has about as much of an effect as a strong one 
on the periphery. A schematic representation 
of a reflex field would have to include the item 
of varying penetrability. 

21. Some reflex fields overlap. Especially 
is this true of the so-called proprio-ceptive and 
the extero-ceptive reflex fields, the former be- 
ing the sub-cutaneous receptors for organic 
stimulation, while the latter are on the skin 
surface, or superficial. The dermal senses ex- 
hibit this overlapping all the while, and in ex- 
perimenting on touch, one finds that most in- 
vestigation is meaningless without taking ac- 
count of this fact. Thus for the modalities 
known as touch, warmth, cold, and pain, there 
is a rather illy defined set of dependable re- 
flexes for functioning them. Sometimes, also, 
there is interaction between overlapping sense 
fields, setting up a new condition in their re- 
lation, known as the "reinforcing of reflexes by 
each other." This has bearings upon intensity, 
both qualitative and quantitative. Sometimes 
reflexes widely apart (dermographically) com- 
bine and interact, as in synaesthesia, by which 
is meant the co-presence of the qualities of one 
object (the stimulus) with the presence of those 
of another object of a normally unrelated mo- 
dality. This is especially instanced by the 

109 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

musician who has his "white" and "blue" minor 
tonalities. 

22. Reflexes also are set off in certain se- 
quences. The sight of a fly causes a hungry 
frog (doubtless visually more alert through 
hunger) to dart out its tongue, the movement 
of the tongue arousing salivation, which again 
leads to the business of swallowing. The stim- 
uli to such reflexes usually overlap each other 
in time, and the threshold of excitability of 
each succeeding one is lowered by the excita- 
tion just in advance of its own. It is almost 
needless to say that most of our learned habits 
are of such a sequential reflex character, called 
con-sequential when the with-for relation is 
present. As a rule, furthermore, the series is 
intransitive, which is exactly what irreversibil- 
ity of the transmission of impulses along the 
neural arc must be understood to mean. 

23. Curious among the reflexes are those 
whose response functions pain. The pain sense 
organs are "anelective," that is, their modality 
includes exceedingly heterogeneous objects. 
Very many kinds of stimuli are painful. And 
if the stimuli are normally inadequate, when 
danger to the whole organism is threatened, 
they become adequate, — that is, the threshold 
is then very low. Especially js an exposed 

110 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

nerve susceptible to low intensities of noxious 
stimuli, and as such represents the imperative- 
ly protective character of the pain reflex. The 
pain reflex exhibits another curiosity in point 
of being aroused, for example, by a harmful 
touch on a certain spot of the skin, where a 
harmless touch would be insufficient. The re- 
sulting actions, likewise, from these two char- 
acters of stimulus are diametrically unlike. 

24. Our fund of health is guaranteed by 
an immense number of tonic and other reflexes. 
The vegetative functions, cardiac, respiratory 
and other valiant reactions against an environ- 
ment we propitiate by metabolism, guarantee a 
certain vital momentum, — on the basis of which 
we are free to function extero-ceptively, — and 
depend for their integrity upon retaining their 
receptive surfaces, modalities and thresholds 
intact. In a way, we might be said to thrive 
principally upon the funded increment of the 
unconscious, for only by means of the warn- 
ings of pathological symptoms do we recognize 
the stabilizing character of these background 
reflexes of our organism. 

25. All the reflexes may be said to be pur- 
posive. That is to say, they maintain the ani- 
mal against some, maybe not the choicest, por- 
tion of his environment. For those parts which, 

111 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

in a case of danger, cannot withdraw, evoke by 
mediation of pain reflexes those which can ef- 
fect a withdrawal. Sherrington also points out 
that the scratching by a dog of his own bitten 
skin grooms the skin so as to protect the sen- 
sory surface against becoming of too high a 
threshold value for the inevitable noxious 
stimulus. 

26. After this brief account of reflexes in 
general, we turn to the specific relation of the 
reflex arc to sensation and its constitutive at- 
tributes. It will be remembered that the three 
strands in the nerve path were the receptor, 
the conductor and the effector, each of which 
has a different function. As may be already 
in mind, the function of the receptor is implicit 
in an adequate description of a receptive sur- 
face. But to go farther, the function of the 
receptor (fibre and sense organ together) is "to 
lower the threshold of excitability of an arc for 
one kind of stimulus, and to heighten it for 
all the others." In our own terms, — to specify 
more and more the limits of the modality. For 
example, there are no electrical receptors: na- 
ture excludes volts and amperes from the list 
of adequate stimuli, — from modalities. But 
the selective excitability of the receptor not 
only limits the number of stimuli within the mo- 

112 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

dality, but provides increasing responsiveness 
to them, and heightens it superlatively for a 
special few. As far as the effector is concerned, 
it is connected with the muscle on its end-plate, 
and the end-plate is indefatigable. No amount 
of stimulation exhausts it, — it has no threshold. 

27. But when one asks what happens in 
the conductor, the array of facts and functions 
is not so abbreviated as in the above cases. 
Now^ if, instead of stimulating the sensory sur- 
face of a reflex, we dissect in under the skin 
to the nerve trunk, and, leaving the receiving 
organ out of the experiment, stimulate a con- 
duction path, the results will differ from those 
derived from intact reflex arc conduction in 
the following ways: 

"Conduction in reflex arc exhibits, (1) slow- 
er speed as measured by the latent period be- 
tween application of stimulus and appearance 
of end-eff'ect, this difference being greater for 
weak stimuli than for strong; 

(2) Less close correspondence between the 
moment of cessation of stimulus and the mo- 
ment of cessation of end-effect, [. e., there is a 
marked "after-discharge" ; 

(3) Less close correspondence betw^een the 
rhythm of stimulus and rhythm of end-effect; 

(4) Less close correspondence between the 

113 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

grading of intensity of the stimulus and the 
grading of intensity of the end-effect; 

(5) Considerable resistance to passage of 
a single nerve impulse, but a resistance easily 
forced by a succession of impulses (temporal 
summation) ; 

(6) Irreversibility of direction, instead of 
comparative unfatigability of nerve trunks; 

(7) Fatigability in contrast with the com- 
parative unfatigability of nerve trunks; 

(8) Much greater variability of the thres- 
hold value of stimulus than in nerve trunks; 

(9) Refractory period, inhibition, and 
shock, in degrees unknown for nerve trunks; 

(10) Much greater dependence on blood 
circulation, oxygen; and 

(11) Much greater susceptibility to various 
drugs — anaesthetics." 

I have italicised several words in this quo- 
tation for the purpose of showing the trend of 
my interpretation of the nervous system; and 
it will be noticed also that these eleven points 
of difference sum for us into a general concept 
of something like a blockade. And the place 
where these blockades occur has been quite 
clearly indicated to be not in the nerve cell 
bodies, nor the sustaining tissue between nerve 
fibres, but in the surfaces of separation be- 

114 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

tween the end-brush and the dendrites, called 
the synapse. Now a surface of separation is 
physically a membrane, — the nerves do not con- 
join any more than the fleshy surfaces of the 
hands touch when one clasps his gloved hands. 
Correlated with the irreciprocal permeability 
of the synaptic membrane is the irreversibility 
of the nervous current, — a phenomenon well 
known as a phase of osmosis. Now the nervous 
conduction is not preeminently chemical, as is 
witnessed by the facts of its speed, freedom 
from the effects of temperature changes, and its 
facile excitation by mechanical means. Right 
here, then, is where mechanics and physics come 
in for their own in psychology. In order that 
a transverse membrane become a conductor, 
it must be modified by doing the conducting, 
and such we find to be the case with reflex 
conduction as diff'ering from nerve trunk con- 
duction. This feature defines many of the 
phenomena of physiological psychology as 
types of auto-catalysed neural activity, and has 
no end of bearings on personality. 

28. We are now ready to indicate the re- 
lation between the attributes of sensation and 
neural activity. Of the first two essential at- 
tributes, modality and quality, we have suf- 
ficiently spoken. The next in order is inten- 

115 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

sity. The first point to make is tliat the in- 
tensity of effect is less well graded with the 
mechanically measurable stimulus in the case 
of the intact reflex arc than in the nerve trunks. 
In the latter it is almost a one-to-one correla- 
tion, while in the former it looks like all or 
nothing. So that internal neurological condi- 
tions play a greater role than do external ones 
in reflex conductions as compared with those in 
nerve trunk conductions. Especially is this to 
be noted in the different grading of effects in 
various reiiexes. The series are not ordinally 
correlated either. And yet intensities in these 
cases are connected with the number of ele- 
ments coexcited, acting by irradiation. How- 
ever this may be, the reaction, as it irradiates, 
treats the motor element, the effector and its 
connections, as a unit. For the whole motor 
center functionally belongs to each and all of 
the groups of receptors proper to the reflex. 
Much light is thrown by this knowledge of the 
working of reflexes upon both the qualitative 
and quantitative aspects of intensity. Unless 
we are merely sparring for time, the unique- 
ness of qualitative intensity means in connec- 
tion with reflexes, that the "all or nothing" 
principle implies too sudden an inlet and out- 
go of energy for any intercolonial responses to 

116 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

furnish an equilibrating neural background at 
the time of the release of reflex energy; while 
the quantitative and functional aspect of in- 
tensity lies unconcealed in the two principles 
of irradiation and differences of grading in the 
various reflexes. This grading is found to be 
a constant function, but its mathematical ex- 
pression is far from being reducible to a sim- 
ple linear equation: its formulation includes at 
least two dimensions. 

29. In connection with the next attributes 
of sensation to be disposed of, it is requisite 
that we consider briefly certain characteristics 
of the release of neural energy in the eff'ector 
nerves. Sensory surfaces, as we have just seen, 
may be very large or very small, but in either 
case the sensory (receptor) fibres leading from 
them pass toward some part of the central 
nervous system, there to be gathered together 
in a bundle to guarantee that the response me- 
chanism shall not be at all hit or miss, but 
rather specifically diff'erentiated from that 
mechanism fed by the sensory fibres from an- 
other sense field. Now, however, several sense 
fields frequently are connected by receptor 
fibres to the same effector mechanism, so that 
the stimulation that gets there first will close 
the "valve" against the later arrival and crowd 

117 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

it out of action. The simultaneous or even 
successive debouching of nervous energies upon 
the same undischarged effector does not behave 
always in the above manner, but whenever any 
effector amenable to neural discharge from sev- 
eral sense fields functions in this way it is 
called a "final common path." Before the final 
common path is reached, however, at least one 
synapse has to be passed, and the condition of 
passage at this surface of separation is of such 
a character that sensory selectivity is very sim- 
ple and easy to comprehend in contrast to the 
eccentric character of the release readiness at 
the entrance to this final common path. The 
motor cells do not conjoin. Only a functional 
union knits them together, and here in connec- 
tion with this neuronic threshold of release we 
may freely mention all but a few of the re- 
maining attributes of sensation, — not only men- 
tion them, in fact, but at the end propound a 
very searching and insistent question. 

30. Intensity has been shown to concern 
the release of energy all along the neural arc. 
"The entrant path tends to run in certain di- 
rections or not at all," for other paths may lead 
to the same conductor and the two sets of forces 
may conflict. Then, either irradiation or sum- 
mation of stimuli must overcome the neuronic 

118 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

threshold, "and irradiation extends per saltum 
rather than ad gradatim." The strongest stim- 
ulated afferent arc is the most likely to capture 
the final common path, — strong and weak re- 
ferring not only to mechanical or other stimuli 
as such, but also to the relation they bear to 
the focus and fringe of the receptive field. Typ- 
ical of the sort of data the psychologist must 
not haggle over, is the fact that the threshold 
of excitability in the reflex mechanism is more 
variable than in the nerve trunks. Stimulation 
in the undissected animal is, pro tanto, destined 
to be more eventful than that in the mutilated 
specimen. There is in James' "Psychology, 
Briefer Course," (pp. 92-101), an account of the 
behavior both of a mutilated frog and of a 
pigeon, in which the differences between them 
and their whole fellow^ creatures is taken up 
in considerable detail, just in point of what 
the neural connections contribute to conscious- 
ness, as we are doing here, with a conclusion 
that 1 am certain is in serious error. I shall 
quote just enough of this chapter both to be 
fair to its author and to make my point: 
". . . the main difiTerence between the hem- 
isphereless animal and the whole one may be 
concisely expressed by saying that the one obeys 
absent, the other only present, objeets." Again, 

119 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

"Within the psychic life due to the cerebrum 
itself the same general distinction obtains, be- 
tween considerations of the more immediate 
and considerations of the more remote. In all 
ages the man whose determinations are swayed 
by reference to the most distant ends has been 
held to possess the highest intelligence." I 
cite this much quoted expression right here, 
even at the risk of losing my reader's memory 
of the issue I have started to make pertinent for 
him, for the exact purpose of showing just what 
inadequacy has characterized many a psy- 
chologist's treatment of neural connections. For 
not only are there innumerable present objects 
and immediate considerations which even the 
whole, undissected animal cannot obey or re- 
spond to, — on account of the selective excitabil- 
ity of the neural arc and the neuronic thres- 
hold, — but there are also recent investigations 
upon dogs, by Goltz, Pavlow and Rothmann, 
showing that new tricks, habits and memories 
may become the possession of animals with 
spines transected and brains dissected out. Let 
any one make out of this whatever he pleases, 
remembering also the nudge we gave in a pre- 
vious paragraph regarding the heirarchy of 
dark thrones in the wilderness of the central 

nervous system. 

120 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

31. Due to the energy required to overpass 
the neuronic threshold, not immediately upon 
the application of the stimulus does the release 
occur. But the latent period (refractory phase) 
in the nerve trunks is only about one sigma (one- 
thousandth of a second), while in the case of 
the reflex arc the pause is considerably longer 
and more variable. Besides, in the latter case 
it often "misses a stitch," — the eftect of the stim- 
uli thereafter being poorly graded with the 
amount of mechanical or electrical stimulation. 
Something is happening, nevertheless, in the 
refractory phase, which is only "that state dur- 
ing which, apart from fatigue, the mechanism 
shows less than its full effect of excitability." 
The summation of stimuli also "produce a con- 
dition at the synapse similar to that normally 
present in the nerve trunk.' This phenomenon 
is not due to the muscle, but is wholly a reflex 
arc affair. Very feeble electric shocks will 
summate, and one weak stimulus followed by 
another one as far apart as 1400 sigma (1.4 sec.) 
may summate with it. This phenomenon 
further means that "the nearer together two 
points are in the receptive field which get stim- 
ulated, the greater coalition there is between 
the reflexes elicited." For "where conduction 
lines run together, there is a reduction in re- 

121 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

sistance," and this is primarily what summation 
means. At this point we may also speak of 
vividness and clearness. When an "initial re- 
flex is followed by an incremental one, the lat- 
ency of the latter is shorter than that of the 
former." The synapse was "set," and the qual- 
itatively different, but modally-prepared-for 
stimulus got functioned on the background of 
this neural readiness. 

32. The final common path being captured, 
adaptation may set in; in which case less en- 
ergy from the stimulus will be then needed to 
produce a release equal to the original reaction. 
The bridge is built, and merchandize may be 
shipped across it ad libitum. "The length of 
latency being inversely proportional to the re- 
flex intensity," before the synapse is "set," there 
follows in cases of adaptation the maintenance 
of a transmission circuit at the expense of very 
little energy from the stimulus. In conduct we 
call this feature "poise." The final common 
path is a common conductor for many impulses, 
arising from many sources of reception. When 
impulses producing allied rather than opposed 
effects play upon it, we have a case of fusion, 
which is summation minus the time element, 
considered from the standpoint of reflex readi- 
ness, though the qualitative character of the 

122 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

fused elements is apparently a derivative of 
time itself. 

33. Linked with the amount of receptive 
surface stimulated is the attribute of extensity. 
It appears now why this and other attributes 
are referred to content rather than to function. 
For if fusion exhibits the fact that in psychol- 
ogy to add is to subtract, extensity of receptive 
field or surface needs not go hand in hand with 
summation of releases or end-effects. This 
very item indicates the different dimensionality 
of quantities and qualities. Yellow, for exam- 
ple, is not just a certain number of vibrations. 
It is also yellow, — the physics of color defines 
not that other dimension into which the concept 
of color is embedded. So with extensity: we 
might even add contrast to the list, for the items 
of sensation in regard to which we have to be 
exceedingly perspicuous and rigidly empirical 
began as far back as the paragraph on the 
neuronic threshold. Contrast is represented, or 
better shared in neural-arc releases by an en- 
largement of the concept of the neurology of 
fusion: I mean the simultaneous and balanced 
use of final common paths for allied effects 
even within different modalities. 

34. The receptive surface of a reflex has 
bounds, and functionally thins off in a manner 

123 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

specified before. The local-sign of an object 
stimulating it will then more accurately cor- 
respond to its position in space, the more ortho- 
gonally it impinges upon that field, functionally 
considered. For an erroneous judgment in 
terms of local sign means only a certain obliq- 
uity of stimulus in relation to the field as a re- 
ceiving apparatus. This concept will be elab- 
orated in the paragraphs on illusions. 

35. The attributes of duration and after- 
image are best treated of together in connection 
with neural action. We saw that the latent 
period included the element of time. These do 
also, but in the following special manner: Sen- 
sations, qualitatively construed, may endure as 
long as, not as long as, or longer than the ap- 
plication of the stimulus. Indeed, the latent- 
period implies that the effector fibre shall re- 
lease its energy later than the receptor; after- 
images merely require the concept of more slug- 
gish time without necessary diminution of ef- 
fect to explain them. For, as formerly asserted, 
time in psychology is not solar time, and for 
the differences no one on an empirical mission 
needs to make any apology. We find that the 
after-discharge of reflexes may be very incal- 
culable. It may be, for example, the same for 
nine stimulations as it is for three stimula- 

124 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

tions, each of which is mechanically thrice the 
quantity of the one used nine times. Or, again, 
after a number of subliminal stimuli there may 
be a pause without discharge, but during which 
the stimuli are summing, followed by a vigor- 
ous discharge, then another pause, then an 
after-discharge, — a thing not so different after 
all from one's experience with induction coils 
and Leyden jars. 

36. Exhaustion is a function of time and 
intensity. As a reflex tires from excessive stim- 
ulation, it not only declines in the amount of 
release of motor energy, but becomes also more 
and more markedly tremulous. Opposed to 
this effect is that of an adapted reflex, as noted 
above. Exhaustion is also a function of po- 
sition or direction. Some reflexes which tire 
when aroused from one spot in the sensory 
surface, can be aroused again to full activity 
by stimulating another spot some little distance 
away. With judicious use, the reflexes are rel- 
atively indefatigable; for by the shifting of 
briefly lasting stimuli from point to point in 
the field, one can produce a longer lasting re- 
action than when the same stimuli come at 
equal intervals at the same point. Now in spite 
of the fact that reference to the sensory sur- 
face is a great factor in exhaustion, the phe- 

125 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

nomenon is not sensory, but directly referable 
to the conduction fibres within the central nerv- 
ous system. But here we have to include the 
fact that "only when" the sensory surface is 
treated thus and so does the internal conduc- 
tivity become involved in the manner so far 
shown. 

37. Inhibition is manifested in the reflex 
arc action in many ways, some of which are 
quite curious. We have spoken of the incre- 
mental reflex, — w^here the second, say, of two 
stimulations being suddenly intensified, arouses 
sudden intensification of the motor result. In 
such a case, whenever there is a latent period 
other than one might expect for such a change 
in intensity, it means the checking, or inhibi- 
tion of spreads of discharge to other centres 
than the one concerned with the discharge into 
the final common path then in operation. 
Again, the after-discharge may be prevented by 
stimulating another reflex which uses the same 
final common path for an effect contrary to the 
first one. What else, also, is the latent time 
itself than a period of inhibition? But we 
usually speak of this phenomenon as occurring 
after the inception of some other fully opened 
discharge mechanism. Now come the curios- 
ities. Reflexes of a simultaneous double sign 

126 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

(that is, where the motor nerve of the extensor 
muscle of a limb and that of the flexor muscle 
have opposed end eftects) are neither exclusive- 
ly excitatory nor exclusively inhibitory. Be- 
sides, certain other reflexes are purely inhibi- 
tory, (that is, they are nihilistic in character, — 
dogs in a manger). They check all end effects 
possible, producing none but those of their own 
release. Inhibitions usually also leave the 
nervous tissue better fitted for more extensive 
functioning after their occurrence, though some 
are neutral, leaving the tissue neither exhausted 
nor surcharged as to energy. 

38. There is but one more attribute of sen- 
sation to be considered in this wise. This is 
feeling-tone. It was suggested previously that 
not quite all the data of sensation could be 
harnessed to neural action, and this intricate 
and mooted point of the neural nature of feel- 
ing now confronts us. These other seventeen 
attributes are all accounted for by intra-neural 
categories; feeling-tone must be accounted for 
by means of inter-neural relationships. But 
the problem is not acute: in case of the readi- 
ness of an arc to respond, or in case of the readi- 
ness of transfer of energy from one arc to an- 
other, or in case of a readiness to inhibit,— 
such items as these sum up most of the neurol- 

127 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ogy of feeling-tones. Whatever other empirical 
conditions may be found to be the bases of feel- 
ing will, of course, but plot other points in the 
same series. We like not only to be doing, but 
also at times to keep ourselves and others from 
doing, as well as we like changes and novelties. 
That these are implicit in the general neurology 
of sensation is evident from a careful perusal 
of the above explanatory and analytic para- 
graphs. 

39. But now there comes an insistent ques- 
tion with regard to all the foregoing. Is what 
the nerves are doing, sensation? And are the 
attributes of sensation which are carefully and 
completely welded to neural releases to be 
taken to imply that the sensation is in the nerv- 
ous system? Is the fluent speaker after all 
only emptying his spine and cranium upon his 
hearers? For it is exactly at this point in 
most treatises upon things mental, where psy- 
chology meets its unpremeditated Golgotha. 
And here a large two-horned dilemma pokes its 
nose over the horizon, for there seem to be but 
two alternatives from which to choose in this 
and every other similar case. One of which 
dilemmas I have elsewhere in this book called 
the gospel of dendrites; and the other of which 
I shall have no trouble in allying to the theory 

128 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

of soft souls. The gospel of dendrites asserts 
that sensations are in and of the nervous sys- 
tem exclusively. My preceding paragraphs, 
with the exception of a fe*v phrases about 
series, (odious and sour to the hide-bound 
physiologist), are welcomed no doubt by the 
upholders of this doctrine, and they point with 
triumph to the harnessing of every last attrib- 
ute of sensation to the internal workings of the 
body. ''There the sensation is/' they say, "it 
is just what the nerves are doing." The other 
party, breezing forth the doctrine of a soft soul, 
retaliates vigorously upon the preceding by as- 
serting that the neural action heretofore de- 
scribed has nothing to do with sensation as ex- 
perienced. "It doesn't feel that way to look at 
yellow, nor to taste lemonade, nor yet to be 
pricked with a pin. The experiencing of 
things is unique, and all your nervous action 
and conceptual series are preposterous and ar- 
tificial." 

40. But both of these objections come about 
through a clear case of total misapprehension. 
It was not a dilemma that appeared above the 
horizon, but merely a unicorn, which only to the 
strabismic showed a bifurcated frontal excres- 
cence. And I shall treat of these two doctrines 
in exactly the inverse proportion to their pop- 

129 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ularity. In the first place, the gospel of den- 
drites gives no sufficient account of the object 
stimulating the arcs. In the second place, the 
theory of the soft and elusive soul spurns all 
identity between that which sensations can be 
analysed into (attributes) and the character- 
istics of neural action as shown by investigators 
who, by the way, do not thus cavil at what 
they find to be the case. For to speak intro- 
spectively about sensations in any manner ex- 
cept simply to blurt their names and their im- 
mediate effects, is to use memory and judgment, 
which are not sensations. But then, the hope- 
lessness of persuading the soft-soul theorist 
against his assumptions is worth nothing in 
comparison to keeping others from becoming so 
unregenerate as he. Of course the object is 
not the neural action. When we ask, as Holt 
asks in regard to reflex activities, "WAaf is this 
organism doing*' in the presence of the fateful 
stimulus? the answer, if complete, can neither 
be in terms of the neural release alone as tested 
on laboratory specimens, nor yet in terms of the 
object we care to assert is the only possible 
potent object within range of the nervous sys- 
tem; but our answer must rather be, that "the 
organism proceeds to do something, of which 
the strict scientific description can only be that 

130 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

it is a constant function of some feature of the 
environment; and this latter [the environment] 
is by no means necessarily the stimulus itself." 
("Response and Cognition," by E. B. Holt, Jour. 
Phil., Psych, and Sci. Methods. July 8, 1915.) 
41. The physiologist cannot, with a mere 
wave of the hand, banish all other objects than 
the one he is especially interested in testing 
upon the organism. Neither is the soft-soul 
theorist putting away nonsensical things in as- 
serting that the object sensed is not the object 
as described; for when he says "sensation," he 
means "object in an environment colored by 
the environment." Of course he cannot under- 
stand why you are talking about one thing when 
he is thinking about fifty. So that it is neither 
neural action that is the sensation, nor yet the 
"experience" which no one can mention, but 
the sensation is the object and what it will do 
in that environment to accomplish the release 
of energy in the nervous system. And these two 
things, what it is and w^hat it does, while un- 
separated in that which the soft-soul theorist 
calls his ^'experience/* have just been separated 
in this treatment of sensation. This point ex- 
hibits an explicit case of the with-for relation; 
things and doings are blended in unanalysed 
consciousness, — blended to make consciousness, 

131 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

— and it is upon the basis and according to the 
character of these blends that we ever tMought 
of using the pronoun I. 

42. But lest I be misunderstood at this junc- 
ture, let me say that, insofar as the neural ac- 
tion is concerned with the sensation, it is iden- 
tical with whatever of the sensation can be de- 
fined by reference to the attributes constitut- 
ing it. Some of these attributes are also identi- 
cal with the object, the stimulus. In adaptation 
the nerves are becoming adapted to the con- 
tinued release of their energy; in summation, 
they sum their effects, and so on throughout the 
list. Sensation, however, is made by an object 
within an environment upon nervous arcs with- 
in the eleven thousand million cells of the sys- 
tem. The object is not cleft from its environ- 
ment nor are the specialized arcs separated 
from their gray and white bedding. For the at- 
tributes that refer to content are of the object 
as well as exhibited in the response, and partial 
naming of them with reference exclusively to 
one or the other is fallacious. Mind and body 
are the same thing, and of the attribute-thing 
character; only the possible attributes are not 
ever all together in time or space, since the 
orders to which the}^ belong forbid such a con- 
dition. 

132 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

THE SPECIAL SENSES 

/. Internal 

43. Typical of the internal sensations and 
doubtless of prime importance to the reader is 
the sensation of hunger. This sensation is to 
be cleft from appetite, for the desserts we eat 
are not taken to satisfy hunger, but merely to 
please us. Furthermore, hunger often forces 
people to take food when it is both distasteful 
and nauseating. It is specifically characterized 
by "a dull ache or gnawing localized at the low- 
er mid-chest region and the epigastrium, be- 
coming more local the intenser it becomes." 
This dull ache is also accompanied by lassitude, 
drowsiness, faintness, headache, irritability and 
restlessness at times, these being the inessential 
concomitants of the sensation. It is not a gen- 
eral somatic condition, nor is it due to nerve 
cells "suffering from a shortage of provisions," 
for after the first few days of a fast, hunger 
wholly disappears. The absence of hunger in 
fever, that there is no evidence for the sudden 
changes in the blood corresponding to the sud- 
den and intermittent onsets of the pangs, and 
the fact that hunger is gone too soon after eat- 
ing for the replenishments it provides to become 
effective, together with the illustration that to 
eat moss and clay, indigestibles that they are, 

133 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

allays the pangs, — these point to a special loca- 
tion for the stimulus. Neither is it due to 
emptiness of the stomach alone, nor to the tur- 
gescence of the gastric glands, for after one 
swallows indigestibles, causing no secretions of 
gastric juice whatever, hunger is assuaged. 

44. Hunger is rather the "result of contrac- 
tions of the muscle fibres of a wholly empty 
stomach" (in health), and "such contractions 
may be even stronger than during digestion." 
This has been shown by means of detecting 
manometric contractions caused by rubber 
baloons connected with tubing temporarily 
swallowed and allowed to be inflated so as to 
receive the impacts of the stomach wall. The 
fact that hunger is often felt higher up than at 
the stomach is accounted for by the similar 
finding of synchronous contractions in the low- 
er oesophagus. The cause for these contrac- 
tions is not known, but writers incline to the 
view that habit rather than specific bodily need 
causes them. The expression "too tired to eat" 
means that fatigue poisons in the blood relay 
their effects to accomplish a fatigue in the 
rhythmic contractions of the digestive organs 
involved. Professor W. B. Cannon writes: 
"Hunger, in other words, is normally the signal 
that the stomach is contracted for action; the 

134 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

unpleasantness of hunger leads to eating; eat- 
ing starts gastric secretion, distends the con- 
tracted organ, initiates the movements of gastric 
digestion, and abolishes the sensation." Now 
the curious thing to note in this sensation is 
that the stimulus is not the stomach, nor the 
empty stomach, but the qualitative and quan- 
titative character of the movements of that or- 
gan. If the introspector says that hunger is 
nonsense when reduced to movements, (just as 
he would say ether vibrations are a silly sub- 
stitute for yellow), the reply is that the sensa- 
tion hunger is the object and what it will do, 
just as with every other sensation in the con- 
scious cross-section. Only the experience of 
hunger is just another qualitative attribute of 
just such movements and nothing else; for the 
physiologist from whom I have just quoted 
would likewise be the last man to say that when 
the stomach contracts all one has in mind are 
the graphical results of the manometric meas- 
urements. 

45. The other internal sensations we shall 
not consider in detail. Except in diseased con- 
ditions the intestinal organs can be burned, 
pricked, cut or pinched without any result for 
focal consciousness. The peritoneum and 
diaphram, on the other hand, as far as experi- 

135 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ment has gone, show extreme responsiveness; 
yet the various attributes of sensation have not 
been systematically studied in them. Thirst 
and nausea are usually localized in the mouth 
and throat. As a usual thing we are not con- 
scious of the action of the heart and lungs, any 
more than we are of the other viscera, and, in- 
deed, only by those feelings known as aches 
and pains do we become at all aware of the 
unconscious backgrounds of focal conscious- 
ness. And these aches and pains are frequent- 
ly intensities, summations, extensities, durations 
and the like of coenaesthetic disturbances, con- 
stituting the with-for relation of general and 
specific defense against disease and thwarting. 
The psychology of these things, when thorough- 
ly investigated, will prove of interest to all 
hands, but their special study is for the pathol- 
ogist rather than for the student of general psy- 
chology. 

2. Cutaneous Senses 
46. The next group of sensations we shall 
consider are those functioned for by organs in 
the epidermis. These are commonly called 
touch, pain, warmth, cold, the pilomotor reflex, 
tickle, roughness, smoothness, and the like, — 
some of which are fusions and summations of 
other sensations. The area known as the "sur- 

136 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

face of the b*dy" is defined as extending as far 
within the apertures of the body as the nor- 
mally "skin-senses" can be aroused. In con- 
nection with all these dermal senses two things 
must be diligently kept in focus : first, the char- 
acter of the mechanical or other stimulus used, 
and second, the various layers of organs of 
sensibility beneath the skin surface. As said 
before, sensations are objects, and there are not 
sensations of these objects; so that later on, 
when we come to the possibility of arousing a 
sensation of warmth by a cold file the student 
will have no need of invoking the artifacts to 
help him over the seeming difficulty. In this 
connection it will be seen just how important 
the nature of series becomes in the science of 
the conscious cross-section. 

47. The organs for the cutaneous senses are 
in general bulb-like. In and about every hair 
follicle fine nerve fibres wind, thus making the 
organs for superficial touch, — that is, the char- 
acteristic sensation aroused by a pin-head or 
a medium-sized bristle moderately applied. 
The formation of the touch-bulb is not unlike 
a rather amateurish piece of splicing. Cold is 
functioned for by other end-bulbs, of a round- 
ish appearance, while warmth is transmitted 
by a cylindrical organ, deeper in the layers of 

137 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

the skin than that for cold. Other disc-like or- 
gans have been located in the deeper tissues, 
whose function is not as exactly definable as 
that of the others. Pain is connected with the 
sensorial functioning of the free nerve endings, 
and has no specialized organ, insofar as evolu- 
tionary shaping is concerned. The skin does 
not respond to thermal, mechanical and elec- 
trical stimuli homogeneously, but is a mosaic 
of tiny areas, some of which respond to touches, 
others to temperatures, and still others to punc- 
tures and the like. But the interesting thing 
about the integumental sense field is that the 
same areas or spots remain constantly of the 
same character, so that we can factually say: 
"Once a touch spot always a touch spot," and 
so on. Of these spots, those responding pain- 
fully are the most numerous, cold and touch 
spots come next, while the warmth spots are 
the fewest. Punsters might infer from this 
condition both that "man was made to mourn," 
and also that nature had some hand in the size 
of the coal bill. Exploration of the entire in- 
tegument has also shown that these spots are 
unequally distributed, in general the most sen- 
sitive parts being over the joints and upon those 
areas uncovered by clothing. Special articles 
on these points will have to be referred to by 

138 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 
the student for further and exacter informa- 
tion. 

48. As a signal example of clean and sig- 
nificant experimentation upon the skin surface, 
is to be mentioned the work of Drs. Rivers and 
Head, as recorded in "Brain," Nov., 1908, in 
an article called "A Human Experiment in 
Nerve Division." I cite this article also for the 
purpose of showing that naive experiments per- 
formed in laboratories result in findings con- 
trary to those which appear in text-books, be- 
cause of lack of definition in the materials used 
and the method employed. Dr. Head found 
three separate sets of organs located in the 
dermal layers, each of which behaved quite 
differently upon the application of the same 
stimuli. And in this case, as before, one must 
be ready to resign his old idea of the nature of 
sensation, and distinguish between the pnjsical 
nature of the stimulus, the functional nature of 
the neural release, and the nature of what the 
organism is doing in the presence of the en- 
vironment. For while we get yellow when looli- 
ing at the sun as a conscious content, we get 
touches, colds, warmths and pains when the 
same shaped stimulus in different physical 
series is applied to the skin. Only persons who 
are eye-minded think of needles when their 

139 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

skin is punctured. The thing known as pain is 
not the essence of needledom; for the abstract- 
ing of a hair from the skin will also cause pain, 
just as the tapping of a cold spot often arouses 
the sensation called cold. We shall speak of 
the identity of series in these various contents 
and processes after the following brief sum- 
mary of this article cited above. 

49. There is an area of deep sensibility, in- 
dependent of cutaneous nerves, which functions 
as follows. Tactile (pin-head) pressure is pres- 
ent in it, which even deep freezing by ethyl 
chloride does not abolish; but the application 
of cotton wool and the pulling of hairs outwards 
produces no focality in consciousness. Sudden 
jars and slight gradual pressures, however, are 
each differently responded to, thus indicating 
that the content of consciousness subtends re- 
spectively the different kinds of intensity in- 
volved. Roughness is well functioned for by 
this deep-lying system of nerves. Pressure, 
which to a normal hand would be painful, is 
present in consciousness as an ache, while needle 
pricking and electric pain arouse nothing there 
at all. Local sign is curiously prominent, even 
after freezing, but two compass points as far 
apart as 6 cm. laid longitudinally to the axis of 
the arm are not distinguished. Yet upon the 

140 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 
application of the points successively no such 
results are obtained. Temperature is wholly 
absent, only numbness being reported after the 
application of cold silver tubes and freezing 
solutions. The point to be finally made is that 
in the above experiment, "the peculiar aptitude 
possessed by a part innervated solely by the 
afferent receptor fibres of a muscular nerve, is 
the appreciation of all stimuli which produce 
deformation of structure." 

50. Some time after such an operation, pro- 
topathic sensibility is present, or the sensibility 
appearing in the first stages of a lesion. In this 
condition, pain is distinctly felt, but "any ther- 
mal sensation produced by an adequate stim- 
ulus to a protopathic area tends to be widely 
diffused and to be referred into remote parts. 
In the attempt to estimate the relative intensity 
of two stimuli, a less cold object covering a 
larger area of the skin may evoke a more vivid 
sensation than one of smaller size but of lower 
temperature." In this stage, also, the hair is 
insensitive to all stimulation. (As long after 
the operation as 86 days.) The hairs do not 
respond with the characteristic "touch" sensa- 
tion, but bring about a tingling and diffused 
one, which "tends to be referred to parts remote 
from the point stimulated. Moreover, the re- 

141 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

turn of this form of sensibility (protopathic) 
does not bring to the skin after shaving any 
power of reacting to stimulation with cotton 
wool." 

51. In the later stages of a lesion, epicritic 
sensibility is manifest. Tactual sensations 
abound in almost the normal amount; localiza- 
tion is good, as are pointedness and relative 
sizes; and while thermal sensitivity is acute, the 
compass points are responded to with much 
irregularity. The touch of cotton wool on a 
shaven area is clearly appreciated, and the hair 
clad parts react both to pulls and pushes. The 
irregularity of the compass tests, however, does 
not include the item of eccentric reference, and 
Head believes that spacial discrimination is 
primarily a function of the epicritic sensibility. 

52. The pilomotor reflex, commonly known 
as "goose-skin," is principally a function of the 
protopathic sensibility. "The exact date of the 
return of this reflex was not noted; but we 
gradually became aware that pricking the skin, 
pulling the hairs, or the application of the cold 
tube would occasionally give rise to a condi- 
tion of "goose-skin" within the area we were 
testing. 

"As protopathic sensibility increased, this 
reflex could be evoked more easily from the 

142 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

affected area than from the normal skin. . . . 
Even brushing the hairs with cotton wool in 
this stage of recovery would start a pilomotor 
reflex. 

"With the gradual return of epicritic sen- 
sibility to the forearm, this increased response 
died away . . . 

"Whilst engaged on these experiments, we 
discovered that the Uhriir called forth by 
aesthetic pleasure is accompanied by erection 
of the hairs ... He [the subject] could 
evoke the reflex by reading aloud some favorite 
poem." (Head, op. cit.) 

53. As to the differences between these sys- 
tems of cutaneous sensibility in adapting to 
warm and cold, it is reported that, 

"Over normal parts, the neutral point of 
thermal sensibility shifts according as the hand 
is adapted to heat or to cold. 

"Over protopathic parts, no such change oc- 
curs ... 

"It follows that some innervation other than 
protopathic must exist in the normal skin 
. . . and that this mechanism is capable of 
adaptation within a wide range. 

". . . protopathic parts are incapable of 
adaptation to any material extent," but "parts 
in a condition of defective sensibility" are "ren- 

143 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

dered apparently more sensitive to the specific 
stimulus of cold." (op. cit.) 

54. "Accurate tactile localization is possible 
even when the part is supplied with deep sen- 
sibility only, provided the pressure is sufficient 
to stimulate the deep afferent system. 

". . . the recognition of two compass 
points applied simultaneously to the skin, is im- 
possible in the absence of epicritic sensibility, 
except at distances enormously in excess of the 
normal. 

"The existence of epicritic impulses inhibits 
the tendency to refer into remote parts. 

"Localization is in all probability the sum 
of two sets of sensations, one of which arises 
from deep, the other from cutaneous stimula- 
tion." 

55. The attribute of intensity is found to 
have the following bearings upon the case: 

"Parts in a condition of protopathic sensi- 
bility respond more vividly than the normal 
skin to all stimuli capable of evoking a sensa- 
tion." [I should rather say "content."] 

"This ... is usually more intense and 
always of much greater extent than over normal 
parts. 

"For all effective stimuli, the threshold is 



144 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

high in a protopathic area, and ... is one 
of defective sensibility. 

"An effective protopathic stimulus of low in- 
tensity, but covering a larger area, may produce 
a sensation of greater apparent intensity than 
a more restricted stimulation of greater 
strength. 

'*The usual psychological view that an in- 
creased sensory reaction corresponds to a low- 
ered threshold must be readjusted. It is true 
in the strict sense only of epicritic and deep 
sensibility." (The italics in the above are 
mine.) 

56. As to punctuate sensibility, Head furth- 
er reports: 

"The skin is supplied by two anatomically 
distinct systems which . . . regenerate at 
different periods after complete nerve division. 
Moreover, a part of the skin may be supplied 
by one of these systems only. 

"Protopathic sensibility depends upon spe- 
cific end-organs gathered together within the 
skin to form sensory spots; the spaces between 
are insensitive to cutaneous stimuli, if the part 
is endowed with protopathic sensibility only. 

"Owing to the sparseness of the heat spots, 
their characteristics can be easily demonstrated; 
cold spots are more numerous and correspond- 

145 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
ingly difficult to investigate. The pain spots 
are so closely distributed throughout the skin 
that it is impossible to study them with the 
[same] accuracy [as in the case] of the heat 
heat and cold spots; but the character of their 
response, and the period at which they regen- 
erate, show that they belong to the same order. 

"Whenever the skin is supplied with proto- 
pathic end organs only, any sensation evoked 
radiates widely and tends to be referred to re- 
mote parts. These are the same, whichever 
kind of spot be stimulated, so long as it lies 
within the same area of the skin. 

"Radiation and reference are abolished as 
soon as the part becomes sensitive to cutaneous 
tactile stimuli and to intermediate degrees of 
temperature. 

"All protopathic sense organs have a high 
threshold. All epicritic organs have a low thres- 
hold. . . . When the normal skin is stim- 
ulated, the defects of protopathic sensibility are 
corrected and compensated by the simultaneous 
activity of the low-threshold epicritic system. 
. . . The epicritic mechanism is highly adapt- 
able. The threshold for painful sensations is 
the same over normal and over highly proto- 
pathic parts, but on the normal skin the ap- 
proach of pain is preceded by the sensation of 

146 



I 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

contact with a pointed object. This is absent 
over protopathic parts. The power of recogniz- 
ing the pointed nature of the stimulating ob- 
ject . . . belongs to that group of sensations 
by which we estimate relative size." 

57. It can thus be seen that "touch" instead 
of being one sense, as handed down in popular 
mythology, is more exactly ten or eleven senses, 
shared among three sets of nerve fibres. For 
example, we can "physically" touch the skin 
with wool, sandpaper, pin points and heads, or 
with wooden skewers that deeply deform it, — 
all touchings, if you will, and yet the conscious 
content is qualitatively different each time. 
Quantitative equality in these cases is something 
that does not exist for psychology, — the intensity 
is in each case prime; and these quantitative se- 
ries in psychology possess severally but one 
term, the term of specific qualitative intensity. 
However, in their relations to other series, an 
other than the prime relation exists in those se- 
ries constituting the separate dermal sensations. 
The case of paradox-cold is one to which too 
great emphasis cannot be drawn, for it means 
that some of the series making up sensation in- 
tersect, just as two lines intersect. To be able 
to arouse a cold sensation with the use of a hot 
rod means precisely that as much of the cold 

147 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

sensation as is thus aroused is identical with the 
as yet unnamed complex of heat-touch-nerve- 
touch-organ, called by virtue of surprise, the 
paradox-cold sensation. It is something more 
than this; for in these two above-named com- 
plexes, there exists a common part. Further- 
more, this concept of the common part is ex- 
hibited in the case of arousing tickle with cot- 
ton wool and with a fine bristle attached to the 
tine of a tuning fork vibrating against the skin. 
The eccentric reference of sensation by the pro- 
topathic system to which Head refers is also 
but a case of common parts in the two series 
of stimulus-organ-response complexes. It also 
means for the student of physiology that the 
response was inhibited along one, its accus- 
tomed, final common path, and found its way 
out by another less blockaded. 

58. It is almost needless to say, that the pro- 
hibition we declared against the use of popular 
terminology in the first chapter is more than 
justified by this rather exhaustive account of 
the nature of touchings and other dealings with 
the skin. Impacts, which have been the glory 
of physics to reduce to formulae, have almost 
no meaning in psychology. For impacts branch 
and flower at the gateway of the nervous system 
in such a surprising manner, that a new con- 

148 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ception of their significance must react even 
on the study of physics. For physics should 
be that area of study in which sensations are 
exhaustively analysed. Again, in the tempera- 
ture senses, what we call warmth, heat and cold, 
are all within a very small range of the possible 
and actual temperatures. The series is short 
in psychology, bordered by the series of numb- 
nesses below the lower threshold of cold, and 
by burnings above the upper threshold for heat. 
Ice is way beyond our limit of cold imagina- 
tions, and the fusion point of even lead bank- 
rupts our sense-imagery. But, having lived so 
long under the dominion of hyperbole and ex- 
clamation points, we flatter ourselves that the 
range of the imagination is unlimited. We for- 
get that we substitute sensation thresholds for 
what lies beyond, and thus in the dust of the 
wheel utter many statements whose meaning 
corresponds exactly to that of flapdoodle and 
galoozalum. 

59. Nevertheless here is a point where 
something other than sensational consciousness 
enters in. The thermometer, by which we 
measure temperatures accurately, and trans- 
cend our sensible appreciation of cold and heat, 
is in fact just a detachable organ, whose busi- 
ness is temperature aff'ectiveness, but whose 

149 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

efferent (sensory) nerve is not in the skin, but 
in the eye. That is, we do not sense trans-sen- 
sational thermometric temperatures, but per- 
ceive them. And at this point we shall leave 
the attribute-thing complex called sensation 
and go to the part-whole complex called per- 
ception, at least, as far as dermal sensitivity 
allows us. 

60. When a single compass point is placed 
on the skin, and we merely react with "there," 
indicating that a touch of some kind was re- 
ceived, it is called sensation. When, again, the 
two compass points are placed on the skin, and 
we, with eyes closed as before, say "there," we 
have again merely sensational content. But if 
we are asked to tell whether in the second case 
there are two points rather than one touching 
us, and the twoness is manifest, we are on the 
road to perception. Especially is this true if 
we notice, by instruction, whether the points 
are placed in a certain dermographic relation 
to each other. Then, if we so locate them, or, 
if we discriminate the single point as having 
position relative to a certain other point or a 
part of the hand, we are perceiving along with 
our sensing, — they both getting simultaneously 
into the language reaction (common part). 
This is perception: sensations having structure, 

150 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

sensations organized into some relationships 
and mentioned by the use of nothing necessarily 
more than prepositions and conjunctions. Drag 
a point along the skin, likewise, and if the re- 
port includes terms in relation, the conscious- 
ness is perceptual. Bear in mind, also, that 
these relations are not "material." Now the 
perception of cold or heat beyond the thresholds 
of these senses is vicariously accomplished by 
the observation of another set of changes than 
those of temperature proceeding side by side 
with the sensational alterations. Before the 
threshold of cold or heat is passed, several sets 
of changes are simultaneously present, one in 
the modality specified above, and the other in 
another modality, say that of sight. The first 
modality may be in focal, the second in co-con- 
sciousness. Then, when the threshold of 
the first modality is passed, the second 
modality comes into focality, and func- 
tions for both of them without apparent 
loss to fused consciousness of the mo- 
dality which has actually ceased to be present. 
For in such a case, our own responses keep 
marking time while the physical changes keep 
mounting their series, — the result being that the 
\ery condition of duration in one sense field 
coupled with alterations in another produces 

151 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

the fusion or summation effect of the sense im- 
agery adequate to the vicarious functioning of 
the trans-liminal series. 

61. Thus perception is, so far, not a "mental 
act" by which we grasp the data obvious to us. 
It is, so far as dermal things are concerned, 
based entirely upon local sign, duration, exten- 
sity, intensity, fusion, contrast and after-image. 
For by the use of these alone, plus the responses 
of the neural organisation to relations, percep- 
tion is made clear and unmysterious. And if 
one asks here, as is inevitable, "how do we re- 
spond to relations ?" the answer is that all neural 
functioning is, ipso facto, a series of effects and 
as such is a set of terms in relation. 
And these relations correspond with the 
relations between the objects they function. 
Furthermore, two compass points are, when 
not fused in touch, psychologically present as 
(1) "there," (2) "there," and (3) "something re- 
lating the two theres" as content. It is like- 
wise with all other relations and terms. Fur- 
thermore, when the content is loosely knit, they 
stand more clearly manifest the longer it en- 
dures; while when the content is welded and 
blent together, it has to be of longer duration 
to allow the relations to be perceived, and even 
then the various familiar parts must be allied 

152 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

and compared with other things. This also is 
the door-step to logical-mindedness, as a little 
reflection will show. 

62. It remains to speak somewhat in de- 
tail of certain attributes of dermal sensation. 
Of qualities there are only a few as compared 
with auditory and visual contents. In touch, 
there are light touch, superficial touch, granular 
touch, and the contents characteristic of moving 
objects on the skin. Intensity has been suf- 
ficiently treated in the quotations from Head. 
The latent period of touch is relatively long, 
varying from 1/6 to 1/4 sec, depending some- 
what upon the rate of impact employed. The 
threshold of touch is determined by the amount 
of pressure required to arouse the organs, and 
varies somewhat for different spots. The dura- 
tion of the touch sensation is connected with 
the matter of after-image, exhaustion, adapta- 
tion, and one or two other attributes, as follows. 
If the impact is forcible, say a dab with a pen- 
cil eraser on the forehead, suddenly withdrawn, 
there is very little longer duration to the main 
sensation than to the maintenance of the stim- 
ulus. But immediately afterw^ards, rings of 
throbbing or resurgence will arise from the 
smitten area as a center and pass ofl' centri- 
fugally. These are after-images, and may ex- 

153 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ceed jQve in number as well as exceed the in- 
tensity of the original impact as felt. They will 
be also more extensive than the original "sen- 
sation." Again, subliminal pressures will sum 
up into an effective stimulation, whose quality 
is often itchy or even painful and diffuse. 
Furthermore, the persistent stimulation of a live 
touch spot by supra-liminal pressures may ex- 
haust it, so that not even by looking at it and 
suggesting to oneself that it "ought" to feel 
touched, can we reaffirm the content above the 
threshold. Nevertheless, in the case of adapta- 
tion, the relating of the subconscious or co-con- 
scious elements of the sensation with other fo- 
cal contents will suffice to reinstate it among 
the series of appreciable intensities. Fusions 
in touch we have already illustrated by refer- 
ence to the compass points; curious simultane- 
ous and successive contrasts are often obtained 
by the use of compass points along with an in- 
strument giving single touches. Even when the 
compass points are beyond or within the two- 
point threshold, they may be felt as one or two 
as contrasted with single touches. Clearness is 
well illustrated in the above case as well as in 
that of diffuseness and pointedness being pres- 
ent at the same time; while lightly brushing a 
hair-clad surface will show that "intensity" (as 

154 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

an impact phenomenon) is not required for fo- 
cal vividness. Feeling-tones in touch are beau- 
tifully illustrated with the aid of various text- 
ures, though touch blends operate here rather 
than single sensations. 

63. As a last word on touch, I wish to cite 
an experiment upon the difference between the 
relative percentages of after-images derived 
from various modes of stimulating the skin, as 
reported in the "Psychological Monograph" for 
September, 1912, by M. H. S. Hayes in a thesis 
on "Cutaneous After-Sensations." The quota- 
tion I shall make will also serve to show the 
nature of the after-image series for dermal sen- 
sitivity. The general percentage of after-sen- 
sations, both those outlasting the application of 
the stimulus, and those reappearing after a sub- 
conscious interval is as follows: 

"Areal Cold 94.8% 

Punctiform Pain 93.5% 

Areal Heat 89.3% 

N. B. Areal Pressure 88.4% 

Punctiform Cold 84.7% 

N. B. Punctiform Pressure 79.3% 

Punctiform Heat 79.3% 

Radiant Heat 74.5% 

Radiant Cold 67.9% 

Electric Cold 59.3% 

155 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

Electric Heat 58.3%" 

As to latent intervals, they are found most 
frequently with pressure, and less and less so 
with pain, heat and cold. Punctiform stimuli 
function them better than areal; whereas the 
briefer latent intervals are connected with heat, 
w^hile longer ones are evident in touch and cold. 
The author concludes the article by saying, fur- 
thermore, that "cutaneous after-sensations are 
real phenomena, and not explainable by imagi- 
nation, oscillating attention, or the presence of 
skin and muscle [ ?] sensations ordinarily pass- 
ing unnoticed." 

64. In connection with heat and cold, or 
better, warmth and cold, — for heat is a curious 
blend of cold and warmth, with slight admix- 
tures of pain at times, — one needs to notice that 
the range of temperatures which the skin right- 
ly appreciates is very limited. We shall speak 
of this range as those temperatures functionally 
effective for focal consciousness. But just as 
"physically" there is only "colder" and "warm- 
er," rather than true "cold" and "warm" or 
"hot," — thus offering no objection to the notion 
that temperature series in psychology overlap 
and possess common parts, — so in psychology, 
the sensational value of a thermal stimulus is 
dependent upon its temperature relative to 

156 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 
that of the human body. Notice this, further- 
more, — that we say we feel comfortable, that 
is, neither warm nor cold, when we mean that 
there are no noticeable thermal sensations, 
while yet the temperatures of mouth, nose, and 
ear, for example, are quite a few degrees dif- 
ferent from each other. To this contrast con- 
dition, there is only unconscious response. As 
a "warm" background for sensations, the skin 
behaves curiously: for we feel a cold stimulus 
as cold, even while the temperature of the skin 
affected is rising, — something the physicist 
would scarcely expect. Other curious phenom- 
ena of temperature are the paradox-cold and 
paradox-heat sensations, while even tapping a 
temperature spot sometimes arouses the tem- 
perature sensation. A similar curiosity is dis- 
covered in touch, where the diifuse sensation 
of light wool can be inhibited by touching with 
a pencil point the center of the responding area. 
But all these phenomena, and many others of a 
like character, merely show that the dermal 
senses are to be best thought of schematically, 
but schematically only as comparable to a net- 
work of intersecting lines and planes, which 
cannot, however, be reduced to the ordinary 
tri-dimensionality of Euclidian space. 

65. Pain is not the same as unpleasantness, 
157 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
for aches and pains can at times possess a curi- 
ous agreeability. Pain and pleasure, which 
common sense makes antithetical, have no such 
opposition in psychology: for pain is a sensa- 
tion, while pleasure is an attribute of any sen- 
sation. It is to be noted, in regard to pain, that 
it has an unusually long latent-period. The 
child whose cries do not come immediately 
after its being hurt, can thus be whisked out 
of the pain series if another class of sensations 
be properly presented to it. Extremes of tem- 
perature are called painful, but they do not be- 
come pains any more than a red becomes yel- 
low; the common part of both series is the basis 
for this apparent change in the conscious con- 
tent. Furthermore, pain-producing spots, 
though the most numerous of dermal organs, 
normally function less often than do the others, 
as result of both long latent-periods and habits 
of avoiding the adequate stimulus for this sen- 
sation. 

66. If tickle can be aroused by stimulating 
a hair-clad surface with wool or by drawing a 
pencil lightly across it, this sensory content is a 
blend of subliminal touches. Tickle can also 
be aroused on hairless surfaces, where touch 
organs thickly abound, and in some cases seems 
to be interpenetrated with slight, unpleasant 

158 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

pain. Other touch hlends will be taken up un- 
der Kinaesthetic Sensations. The point I wish 
to keep in mind here is that if a rapidly vibrat- 
ing bristle and other things will arouse tickle, 
psychologically a spacial numerousness over a 
large area is the same as a temporal numerous- 
ness over a smaller one. For psychology, then, 
numerousness or periodicity is a prior category 
to space or time. And numerousness is a prop- 
erty of the cardinal number system, and not a 
"mental" or "physical" object. 

Questions on the Dermal Senses. 

1. Describe fully both the physical and 
psychological events in producing some form 
of touch sensation. Make a list of the attributes 
exhibited and relate them one at a time, as ac- 
curately as you can, to the physical stimulus 
operating. 

2. Slowly immerse the hand in cold water, 
and notice that the more surface that becomes 
stimulated by the liquid, the colder the con- 
sciousness becomes. Do the same with hot 
water and mark the corresponding effect. Then 
completely cover the hand with dry sand; or 
better, slowly immerse it in mercury and no- 
tice carefully that something else happens than 
in the case of the other two liquids. Enumerate 
all the attributes of sensation involved in the 

159 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

three parts of this experiment, and state psy- 
chologically the different effects obtained. 
Kinaesthetic Sensations. 

67. We have seen that a point moving over 
the skin can be sensorially appreciated. This 
phenomenon includes, however, the items of in- 
termittence and resistence, which are also pres- 
ent when we move the skin over a fixed stim- 
ulus; and these two situations are identical in 
their cutaneous effects. Now, movement is not 
a function of the touch organs, and neither is 
it dependent upon the muscular condition, for 
there are no muscular sensations, heavy and 
deep pressures being functioned by the cutane- 
ous system of deep sensibility, and by organs 
located in the joints and tendons. 

68. The quality known as strain which we 
find as content in pushing, pulling, long stand- 
ing and the like is derived from an environment 
upon which the tendinous sense is contrasted. 
The spindles of Golgi furnish the specific organs 
for this response. It will be noted here, also, 
that strains as sensations are identical with 
strains in physics. Content and function here 
coincide. The strain sensation has common 
parts with certain members of the pain and 
warmth series in overexercise, while in buoyant 
health the "springy" step we experience is due 

160 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

to the presence of the attributes of clearness 
and vividness, quite independent of the thres- 
hold. Strain has an obviously precise local sign 
in some cases, while in others eccentric refer- 
ence allies it to the protopathic system in touch. 

69. Joint sensations have much the same 
quality as certain touches, especially the deep- 
er ones. To the functions of the end-organs of 
articular cartilages are due these joint or artic- 
ular sensations. If, before we push a heavy 
object, we "set" the joint, the subsequent sen- 
sations are largely tendinous. Now the state- 
ments in regard to movement are almost never 
indicative of sensations, but rather of percep- 
tions. To report that a limb has moved, — just 
moved, — is of course a sense report, but to say 
that its relation to the rest of the body or to an- 
other limb is altered, is no longer a matter of 
sensation, but of perception. This can be built 
up out of after-images of former position, united 
with the present sensory datum, or can be di- 
rectly related, — but in either case, we more 
properly speak of perceptions of movement, 
since the situation contains parts, rather than 
bare attributes. 

70. When one feels a rough or smooth sur- 
face, not only is touch present, but a certain 
amount of intermittence and resistence also. 

161 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

The reason we do not ordinarily call these con- 
tents perceptions, is because, if the eyes are 
closed, we are uncertain as to the physical na- 
ture of the stimulus, and the loose organization 
of parts is scarcely sufficient to avoid misnaming 
the stimulus. So we call them touch-blends in- 
stead. They are, more exactly, cases of inter- 
sensational fusion and summation, and as such 
have many common parts with each other as 
we shall presently see. For with all move- 
ments, or with all situations in which the ten- 
dinous and articular senses are involved, in- 
sufficient orientation with the rest of the con- 
scious cross-section produces a condition, the 
type of which the following illustration will 
render clear. In the first place, we never know 
our nerves, and never have any focal conscious- 
ness of the release of energy into the effector 
organs. It is impossible to think of the move- 
ments we go through in terms of specific excita- 
tion of the moving member, — arm, leg, eye, 
tongue, etc. We know only late in the game 
that they have moved beyond the place that is 
in focal consciousness. Former theorists on the 
nature of the will have turned over in their 
graves several times since this was made evi- 
dent, but it has so far done little good. Active 
and passive movements alike are unaccom- 

162 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

panied by this experience of energy in the con- 
sciousness they produce. Furthermore, foot- 
rules are not part of the furniture of the nervous 
system; and our blind estimation of how far, 
or how much further we have moved a member 
this time in comparison to the last is very in- 
accurate. It takes a whole orgy of sensations 
to make a satisfactory perception of movement, 
and even then the part-whole complex they con- 
struct is often top-heavy with eccentric refer- 
ence of one of the elements. For with all the 
senses active, — movement, sight, hearing, touch, 
and the like, — one expects that his body will be- 
come an efficient geometer. But in psychology, 
there are no unequivocal calibrations. The 
quadrants, sextants, slide-rules, meter sticks, and 
so forth, which we make and use, are again ad- 
justable touch, movement, and sight organs, de- 
rived from countless comparisons with and con- 
tradictions of data obtained by the naive sense 
organs, as well as made under conditions in 
which the natural forces themselves inscribe 
their periodicities upon receiving surfaces. In 
comparison to the accuracy of these records, 
almost all naive perceptions might be termed 
blends, for as true perceptions they are serious- 
ly unstable. 

71. I shall quote E. B. Titchener's account 
163 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
of touch blends, as found on pages 171-2 of his 
"A Text Book of Psychology," since it seems 
both thorough and quite in line with the view 
of sensation as propounded in this book. "The 
difference between hard and soft, for instance, 
is mainly a difference in degree of resistance 
offered to the hand; and this means a difference 
in the degree of pressure exerted by the one 
articular surface upon the other. The distinc- 
tion thus belongs to the joints rather than to the 
skin. Again, the difference between smooth 
and rough is a difference, first, between con- 
tinuous and interrupted movement, and sec- 
ondly between uniform and variable stimula- 
tion of the pressure spots of the skin. The dis- 
tinction thus belongs to joints and skin to- 
gether." 

"Sharp and blunt differ, primarily, as pain 
and pressure: a thing is sharp if it pricks or 
cuts, blunt if it sets up diffuse pressure sensa- 
tions." . . . "Wetness is a complex of pres- 
sure and temperature. It is possible, under ex- 
perimental conditions, to evoke . . . wet- 
ness from perfectly dry things, — flour, lycopo- 
dium powder, cotton wool, discs of metal; and 
it is possible, on the other hand, to wet the 
skin with water and to evoke the perception [ ?] 

of a dry pressure or a dry temperature. Not 

164 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

the moistening of the skin, but the fitting dis- 
tribution of pressure and temperature sensa- 
tions, gives rise to the perception [?] of wet- 
ness. Other modes of distribution of the same 
sensations produce the perception [?] of dry- 
ness. 

"Clamminess is a mixture of soft and cold: 
the cold sensations and the pressure elements 
in the softness must be so distributed as to give 
the perception [?] of moisture. The clammy 
feel of a wet cloth may be got by laying the 
fmger on a loosely stretched rubber membrane, 
and sending a puff of cold air over it at the 
moment of contact. Oiliness is probably due to 
a certain combination of smoothness and re- 
sistance; movement seems to be necessary to 
its perception [?]. Clinging, sticky feels may 
be obtained from dry cotton wool." 

If, then, an identical conscious content can be 
provoked by two or more differing mechanical 
means, we can but say that they have common 
parts : they coincide in the effects they produce. 
We have noticed this item in connection with 
the phenomenon of a "touch" becoming "pain- 
ful," and have dealt with the error involved 
in such a statement. Further illustrations of 
the same thing will occur profusely in, for ex- 
ample, the sense of sight, but we only need 

165 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

prophesy here that no "red" ever became a 
"yellow," as will turn out after the whole band- 
age has been removed. 

Taste and Smell. 
72. These two senses are very intimately 
connected in the conscious cross-section by vir- 
tue of the fact that they blend together so in- 
veterately. But psychological analysis separ- 
ates them with ease, and their definite connec- 
tion with chemicals is quite complete. The taste 
organs are taste buds, which are calyx-like 
structures in the papillae of the tongue, parts of 
the soft palate, the larynx, and a few other 
places. There are taste buds also in children 
on the inside of the cheeks, and in the center of 
the tongue, which, in adults lacks responsive- 
ness to taste. There are but four primary qual- 
ities of taste, — sweet, salt, bitter, and sour, — all 
others being smell-taste mixtures, or compensa- 
tions and rivalries either in one sense or the 
other, or between them both. Oscillations are 
also frequent between tastes of a high intensity. 
In general, the adequate stimulus is a solution^ 
which is part of the function of the salivary re- 
flex. Besides, chemical salts taste salty, sugars 
taste sweet, alkaloids bitter, and the acids sour. 
However, there are some chemical salts that 
taste sweet, others bitter, while quite a few are 

166 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

tasteless. Too, some few acids taste sweet, 
some are tasteless, while one, hydrocyanic acid, 
gives bitter. Very salty solutions slightly burn, 
and very sour things become astringent or pain- 
ful. Likewise, sweets in saturated solutions 
prickle or burn the tongue, while bitters often 
have a fatty as well as a burning quality. Only 
solutions taste, whether the solvent be solid, 
liquid or gaseous, but just as there are salts 
which do not taste salty, so there are some solu- 
tions which are tasteless. 

73. Taste is easily localizable, being un- 
equivocally in that complex of solution- 
tongue. But in taste, one must carefully dis- 
tinguish between the quality of the taste and 
the quality or intensity of the solution as well 
as other things. An apple, let us say, tastes 
either sweet or sour; but as something eaten, as 
something in the mouth, there is much more 
to be considered than the bare taste quality. 
There are, for instance, the elements of pres- 
sure, movement, and duration, any or all of 
which give us the characteristic perception of 
eating this or that thing. It is known that a 
jaded palate is more often appeased by altera- 
tions in duration and pressure concerned in "re- 
ducing the contrary material to submission" 
than by alterations of the specific taste ele- 

167 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ments themselves. The most interesting attri- 
butes of taste are fusion, adaptation, inhibition, 
and contrast, especially as they occur in cook- 
ing. Lemonade is both sour and sweet, and 
also a partial fusion of these two qualities. 
Sweets taste "smooth" and acids "rough," and 
thus lemonade is a complex of five, if not of six 
separable things. We sweeten bitter coffee and 
tea, — nature not having consulted with us in 
planning the woodside order of these bever- 
ages. Salads are another case of the "search 
for happiness" (?), in which concoctions sugar 
offsets the salt, while both either inhibit or en- 
hance the oil and vinegar to a slight degree. A 
strong sweet and a salt make an insipid com- 
bination, but neutralize each other into a vapid 
blend, if weak. And so on. The contrast ef- 
fects of tastes may be either simultaneous or 
successive, and subliminal sweets often sum up 
into something focal, which, if based on bare 
quantity, plots an unexpected series of relations 
between the two thresholds thus obtained. The 
latent period of taste, from long to short, runs 
as follows: bitter, sour, sweet, and salt. But in 
taste mixtures, this order does not follow the 
combinations made on a quantitative basis. 
For while the neutralizations (inhibition) are 
best in the order: sweet-bitter, sour-salt, salt- 

168 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

bitter, s\veet-soui% — following slightly the laws 
of color mixture, — yet new series are developed 
in the mixing which have their bases in some- 
thing other than chemistry or physics. Even 
the time relations of tastes would suffice to de- 
velop "newness" in the gustatory cross-section. 
Contrast in taste is more marked than adapta- 
tion, and adaptation to one sort of solution al- 
ways leaves the other three intact. Liminal 
sour on one side of the tongue applied at the 
same time as a subliminal sweet on the other, 
may bring the latter to some sort of focality; 
while subliminal bitter, when applied with an- 
other taste, is usually present as sweet, if at all. 
74. Taste is a difficult sense to study, as one 
can easily imagine. The mouth must be bul- 
warked wath cotton, and the tongue wiped dry 
incessantly, while the experimenter, with a fine 
camel's hair brush stimulates the various pa- 
pillae. But by dint of patience, the following 
general facts are well established: the back of 
the tongue senses bitter, the edges sour, the tip 
sweet, while salt is sensed by nearly every part 
of it. Some of the individual taste buds re- 
spond to all stimuli, while others to but one or 
two; continued touching of the papillae also ex- 
hausts their functioning power. The threshold, 
as might be expected, varies with the amount 

169 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

of the liquid taken, but for equal quantities of 
solution, a 0.2% solution of sulphuric acid, a 
0.4% solution of salt and a 1.2% solution of 
sugar is sufficient to effect a focality of taste. 
Curiously enough, also the electric current 
tastes, — doubtless due to ionization, — while with 
the ears full of warm water in which electrodes 
are bathed, a sour taste in the mouth results. 
However, inasmuch as the nerve supply of the 
tongue is functioned by the vagus, lingual and 
chorda tympani, such a phenomenon is not al- 
together anomalous. 

75. The curious common parts in the der- 
mal senses have already been intimated. Chem- 
ically, there is apparent evidence for allying 
the various tastes more effectively than there is 
physically for allying the senses of warmth and 
cold. The so-called 111, IV, and V groups of 
chemical series are generally sweet-tasting, 
while the "inorganic, bitter-tasting substances 
are derived from positive ionization of the I and 
II groups, and from the negative elements of 
the VI and VII groups.*' On this basis the 
sweet-generating molecule is also potentially a 
generator of bitter. But much clean experi- 
mentation is yet to be done upon this sense 
field. 

76. Smell, like taste, is a chemical sense, 

170 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

but smell is peculiarly a land and ground sense, 
used by man only for its nutritive and protec- 
tive value, and not for such purposes as are em- 
ployed by those animals in whom it is best de- 
veloped. We find our food by appointment and 
not by odor. The organ for this sense is not 
the total nose, but is a very small, brown patch 
of mucous membrane high up in the whorls of 
the anterior part of the head cavity, ciliated 
and bathed in liquid. The cilia waft forward, 
also, thus driving those odors ordinarily un- 
noticed in eating, which rise through the pos- 
terior nares, out toward the forward apertures, 
and in this way function a sort of extra sentry- 
duty upon our food. The cells in this patch of 
mucous are similar to the taste cells, and the 
olfactory nerve, which supplies them, is the 
shortest in the body. Part of the region con- 
cerned is also supplied by the trigeminous 
nerve, and there is unusual sensitivity to cold, 
heat and pain in that area of the body. It is 
thus doubtful whether one should call the organ 
of smell and its environs inside or on the sur- 
face of the skin. 

77. Contact is essential for smell, and either 
vapors or particles can stimulate. The local 
sign of an object of smell is given by virtue of 
its position in the cone-shaped area defined by 

171 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

the apertures of the nose downwards. In gen- 
eral, those substances which whirl while dis- 
solving in a liquid can be smelted, but not quite 
all whirling substances are odorous, nor do all 
smellable things whirl in solution. Again, some 
substances must be applied in solution to the 
brown patch directly, in order to be sensed by 
this organ. Furthermore, the brown patch is 
not on the main line of conduction from the 
front to the back of the nasal passage, but the 
odors drift and are wafted thither by the cilia 
instead. In spite of this fact, the threshold is 
very low, being given as one millionth of a milli- 
gram of mercapton dissolved in a cubic deci- 
meter of washed air. There has been some at- 
tempt to relate the chemistry of smell to the 
psychology of it, but no one has plotted the 
series very far or very assuredly, since smell is 
even a more difiicult thing to test than taste on 
account of sudden exhaustion and adaptation. 
78. While there are but four original tastes, 
there are several hundred smells, sometimes ar- 
rangea in classes, but without well determined 
bounds. Aromatic odors certainly differ from 
the vapors of dried fish, but in psychology, there 
is frequently as much "difference" between the 
near together as between the far apart. This 
may be politely analogous to the status of rela- 

172 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

tives and strangers. Some smells also taste 
sweet, others bitter, while some are instantly 
painful withal. Some arouse tingling, some 
tears, and not a few nauseate. The inessential 
attributes of smell largely constitute the sensa- 
tion, since adaptations, fusions and inhibitions 
are especially frequent and potent. The curve 
of qualitative intensity falls with exceeding 
rapidity during the first few seconds, as every 
boudoir enthusiast knows. But smell mixtures 
are possible in smell in a way not quite know^n 
in taste. There are two brown patches, one in 
each nose, and the nasal passages do not unite 
that far forward in the head; thus one smell 
can be led to one nostril and another to the 
other, so that there can be an effect produced 
for consciousness not referable to the single, 
separable organs alone. The "position" of 
smells, therefore, is not necessarily in the space 
of our forefathers. Smells will also mix in the 
same nostril, just as tastes on neighboring pa- 
pillae. But smell mixtures are less stable than 
color mixtures, and there is also no clear cut 
antagonism in this field as there is in sight. 
Smell is lacking in the negative after-images we 
find in the temperature senses and in taste, a 
phenomenon that allies it likewise with the do- 
main of sound. Peculiarly special in this sense 

173 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

field also is the case of the elevation of the 
threshold for discrimination after partial adap- 
tation, thus making contrast here a derivative of 
one of the temporal attributes of neural release. 
Hearing, 

79. In connection with this modality, it will 
be requisite that the student have access both 
to enlarged models of the ear and to charts 
showing the various dimensions in outline, for a 
verbal account of so intricate an organ is usual- 
ly misleading and often fails to flatter the de- 
scriptive powers of an author. We shall speak, 
then, of the functions of the various parts, pre- 
suming some slight anatomical knowledge of 
the terms employed. Every one of the attrib- 
utes of sensation is clearly illustrated in connec- 
tion with audition, and the importance of this 
sense field being so obvious, it will be advan- 
tageous to keep in mind the schematization of 
sensation given in the introductry paragraphs 
of this chapter, as well as to note carefully the 
differences between the aural functions and con- 
tent, and those of the previously discussed sen- 
sory fields. 

80. To begin with, there are three main 
groups of auditory qualities: tones, noises and 
voices. The adequate stimulus for audition is 
air or other vibrations which reach the ear. 

174 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

Sound is not all due to air vibrations, for the 
sound of a tuning fork placed on the crown of 
the head or on the teeth will be conducted to 
the receptive surface by means of bony bridges; 
but vibrations of some sort must set the ap- 
paratus in motion for there to be a functioning 
in sound. It must be observed that an air or 
bone vibration is not a blank flutter. Cases of 
vibration are cases also of the frequency of the 
impacts, the amplitude of the wave motion and 
the form or regularity of the disturbance of the 
particles of the transferring medium. Each of 
these has an important finger in the auditory 
pie. For while the number of the vibrations 
means pitch, high or low, while the amplitude of 
the vibrations means loudness, and while wave 
form is a specifically diff'erentiating element 
in tones, noises and timbres; yet all high tones 
are intrinsically loud, and low tones intrinsical- 
ly weak. Also, by a figure, we call the former 
bright or thin and the latter dull and broad by 
virtue of the fact that we habitually see the 
means of their production. Again, while the 
wave form is what we mean physically when 
we speak of clarionets and French horns, we 
also have the expression "tone color," by which 
is meant the pitch, "size" and intensity of a cer- 
tain given tone. Within these three groups, — 

175 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tones, noises and voices, — there are exceeding- 
ly many separate qualities, clear from the lower 
limit of audibility (pitch) to the highest tone 
which can become focal in consciousness. 
These two extremes are called, respectively, the 
lower and upper thresholds of pitch. The au- 
dible range extends from about 12 to 40,000 
vibrations per second, but the recognized musi- 
cal scale is between 40 and 8,000 vibrations 
only. The letter "s," which occurs so frequent- 
ly in language, is almost at the upper limit of 
hearing, as can be made manifest by compari- 
son with notes on a Galton whistle. There is 
also another very important threshold in sound, 
and that is the duration threshold. Any note, 
to be heard distinctly in its physical pitch, must 
be represented by at least two vibrations before 
it has value in the diatonic scale. Otherwise it 
will not set into operation the mechanism of 
the ear sufficiently to arouse a tone sensation 
rather than one of noise. For noises are crowds 
of still-born tones. 

81. The function of hearing is partly ac- 
complished by a mechanical apparatus of the 
following kind. The outer ear, or concha and 
external meatus, are together a funnel for re- 
receiving sound. They together form an unob- 
structed opening into the head, the external 

176 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

meatus ending at the tympanum, or drum. This 
drum is a tough membrane of fibres radiating 
from the center, and performs an adaptive 
function as well as its function in hearing. It is 
likewise protective, especially in its collabora- 
tion with the action of the Eustachian tube, for 
we prevent rupture of the ear drum by keeping 
our mouth open in the presence of sharp explo- 
sions, thus equalizing the pressure of the air 
on both sides of the drum. By means of at- 
taching a very small convex mirror to the tym- 
panum and observing the play of reflected beams 
of light cast on the surface of the mirror, ob- 
servers have been able to detect with sureness 
just what part the tympanum plays in the hear- 
ing of certain sounds. The tensor tympani, — 
a small muscle attached to the hammer bone,, 
which acts torsionally upon the tympanum, — 
is observed to contract with the increasing in- 
tensity of the tone. This function does not op- 
erate in connection with pitch, except insofar 
as the highest tones are intrinsically intense, 
as noted above. At a sharp sound there is in- 
stant contraction of the membrane, barring of 
course the latency required for such adjust- 
ment. After the drum is "set" for a certain 
intensity, it vibrates as a whole sympathetical- 
ly to the number of vibrations in the generating 

177 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

body, and even vibrates in partials when the 
overtones of the stimulus note are relatively 
strong. We speak here particularly of notes in 
the middle register of the musical scale. Not 
only does the drum vibrate pro tanto with the 
stimulus, but the small bones in the ear do like- 
wise; for clear to the oval window the separate 
vibrations can be traced along the bony chain, 
which has been especially studied in the vibra- 
tions of the stapes when the tympanum is en- 
tirely absent. The general function of the or- 
gans of the middle ear is to vibrate freely as a 
whole to moderately low and mildly intense 
sounds. But the higher in pitch and the greater 
in intensity the sounds become, the tighter be- 
come all the loose parts in the external and 
middle ears. Thus the function of hearing 
some things is partly accomplished without ref- 
erence to anything but a mechanical apparatus, 
insofar as the transfer of sound vibrations half- 
way into the organ is concerned. Nevertheless, 
the one-to-one correlation above indicated is 
but brief in the series of sounds, and the disor- 
ganization of our expectancy begins even at the 
tympanum. For here vibrations of a relative- 
ly great amplitude and slight strength are 
turned into ones of smaller amplitude and 
greater strength. Furthermore, the tympanum, 

178 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

when stretched, becomes a functioner of entire 
energy rather than pitch, for the amplitude of 
its vibrations in this case is very much de- 
creased; while if the tensor tympani is cut, the 
vibrations of the hammer head are considerably 
increased. These two additional items must 
also be noted : first, that if a sound is led to but 
one ear, the other ear functions it by conduction 
through the bones of the head and the Eustach- 
ian tubes, and second, that persons who lack 
the ossicles, still hear very high and very low 
tones. 

82. Before taking up the interesting mass of 
material in audition which better concerns the 
psychologist than most of the discussions about 
what becomes of the vibrations after they are 
prodded into the oval window by the foot of 
the stapes, we had better outline in brief the 
general nature of neural functions in regard to 
periodicities in general. For the concept of 
periodicity includes not only such things as air- 
vibrations, but also such things as roughness, 
smoothness and a few other phenomena in the 
dermal modalities. We saw in connection with 
the senses hitherto considered, that if one be- 
came frightened as to how in the world the 
qualities of sensation managed to get into con- 
sciousness, there was nothing to do but to in- 

179 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

voke the general mysteries of nature, or necro- 
mantically squeeze the nervous system until 
something like a reality oozed out. With hear- 
ing, as in the other senses, we shall not have 
any need to waste wonder over how the vibra- 
tions get heard: vibrations do not get heard, — 
they get counted. Vibrations are not all there 
is to tones, noises or voices: the vibrations are 
the part of these phenomena which are open 
to the investigations of physics. The part not 
specifically physical, but specifically psycholog- 
ical — (and call it psychological and nothing else, 
if the grumbling spirit moves you) — consists of 
things we call tones or other qualitative audi- 
tory phenomena, which, insofar as they are cor- 
related by the physicist, are said to be dependent 
upon vibrations; but which, as apprehended by 
the psychologist, are something else than this. 
Besides, it is not up to the psychologist to tell 
how he hears, but literally only what he hears. 
As for the physiologist, he may clip his tensor if 
he wishes, but if he does, it is no gauntlet 
thrown down to the physicist or the psycholog- 
ist: it is his own boomerang. The central fact 
of psychological data is the principle of order, 
— what I have elsewhere called series, — and it 
has been shown that the attributes of sensation 
are series for the most part of no temporal or 

180 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

spacial character. The name in physics for 
these series or orders is periodicity of vibra- 
tions, while the physiological name for them 
is electro-chemical waves of neural discharge or 
release. However this does not make the nar- 
row strip of territory between physics and 
physiology called Psychology a petty and in- 
digent principality doing homage forever to its 
aggrandizing neighbor kingdoms. For only a 
few even of the mathematical sciences can 
claim to be based upon series which have a full 
quota of members. In physics, in chemistry, 
in physiology as well as in psychology, there are 
many series which cannot muster all the terms 
inferred from their point of origin and their 
subsequent development. Nevertheless, in this 
connection the point to be made is that not all 
things are physical nor chemical, nor yet "men- 
tal," but whatever partial orders there are in 
these and the other sciences, they frequently 
exhibit the phenomena of the common part. 
Here it is that many curious things often hap- 
pen in science on account of the hasty desire 
of theorists to rigidly apply throughout a 
science a principle that is exhibited only a little 
ways in the data they have honestly observed. 
83. Thus the only reputable theories of 
hearing, of sight, of emotion and any other phe- 

181 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

nomena are bare enumerations of the facts ar- 
ranged according to whatever principles of or- 
der are manifest. As is the case with other 
sciences, the data of psychology define their 
own dimension, and as observed before, neces- 
sitate the use of a system of terms in need of 
no apology in the presence of the other sciences. 
If, then, one asks how hearing is functioned, 
the answer is that the orders or series of audible 
things are partly correlated with physical vibra- 
tions, partly with neural periodicities, which 
are not vibrations of the nerves at all, but waves 
of neural release corresponding to the period- 
icity of the impacts of the stimulus. The con- 
nection is functional; whether there be identity 
now and then is neither a case for exultation 
nor alarm. Within the ear, then, we have seen 
that the organs in the air-filled spaces of it have 
a definite functional as well as mechanical re- 
lation to the sounding stimulus; but in the 
liquid chambers of that organ, the case has not 
been altogether facetiously called "a watery cor- 
relation between hearing and hammering"; for 
the action of the basilar membrance with its 
"harp of a thousand strings" is itself the definer 
of a new order of relations between stimulus 
and content. For this membrane, directly an 
element in the neural tissue, translates the phys- 

182 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ical impacts into neural releases of such a char- 
acter that the content of consciousness is iden- 
tical with the qualitative character of the 
sounding and vibrating stimulus. The sound 
may be in the head, by virtue of bone or even 
air and nerve conduction, but it does not origin- 
ate in the head, nor is it hurled from the brain 
as a sort of by-product. The sound may be in 
the head, in the ear, — in fact anywhere you 
please, — but it is IN whatever is stimulus as well 
as content of consciousness. For the conscious 
cross-section includes the knowledges of every- 
thing, whether it be the introspection upon our 
poor relations, or our observations of and in- 
cluding the librations of the moon. 

84. To give exactly the relation between 
tones, noises and vowels (voices), I shall cite 
the unusually significant and clean experimen- 
tation of Jaensch. He placed a selenium cell 
in the circuit of a telephone which was illum- 
inated by an arc lamp whose light was varied in 
its continuity and steadiness by the revolutions 
of an obstructing disc. This disc, moreover, 
was so cut about its edge that the variations in 
the length of its radius corresponded with the 
variations in height of any sound form-curve. 
By means of this apparatus he demonstrated 
that (a) a constant rate of vibration produces 

183 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
a tone (e. g. mean variation of zero), (b) the 
same average rate of vibration produces a vow- 
el-like sound if the mean variation from the 
average is still small, but (c) with the further 
increase of the mean variation the sound, after 
passing into the vowel character, passes again 
out of it, until, with the mean variation being 
very great, nothing but noise is produced. Thus 
he showed that the average rates of vibration of 
the letter sounds, zn, u, o, a, e, f, s and ch are 
very nearly octaves of each other in an ascending 
series. But this octave connection is not in- 
clusive of the fact that the vowels are neces- 
sarily to be identified with certain tones, even 
if the prolongation of a vowel at a steady pitch 
always necessitates its being based upon some 
note in the musical scale. Thus vowels are 
something of tones and something of noises, 
though no octave connection exists between 
noises. Noises can be produced with striking 
resemblance to the musical scale, by the drop- 
ping of sticks of uneven length upon a flat sur- 
face. Orchestra players know very well that 
the ''attack'' required in sforzando passages is 
an actual noise. The relation between these 
three sorts of auditory qualities can be further 
elaborated by saying that with the increase of 
variation in the number of vibrations per sec- 

184 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ond, there is a corresponding decrease in the 
definiteness of the pitch. But this scheme is 
best at about 1000 vibrations per second, for it 
waxes as one ascends or descends the pitch 
series, ceasing altogether at both 32 and 32,000 
vibrations. 

85. The physical analysis of sound waves 
shows two main patterns of vibration: periodic 
and non-periodic. A periodic w^ave is one in 
which the same movements are repeated, how- 
ever complex, during equal periods of time, 
however long. A non-periodic wave is wholly 
devoid of regularity. The periodic waves are 
subdivided into tw^o lesser classes, pendular and 
non-pendular, these terms referring to the sim- 
plicity of their form. Thus the pendular waves 
represent pure tones, such as are produced by 
bottles and tuning forks, the form of the wave 
being a sine curve; while the non-pendular 
represent such tones as are produced on musical 
instruments, being accompanied by a series of 
overtones or partials. Voices and noises thus 
are composed of non-periodic sound waves, dif- 
fering in their percentage of regular interrup- 
tions as indicated previously. 

86. Every contained volume of air as well 
as every more or less regularly (or orderly) 
shaped physical object, whether solid or hol- 

185 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

low, has its own specific rate of vibration, 
which can be aroused not only by mechanical 
impacts, but by the surrounding air being 
thrown into suitable vibration. The vibrations 
which act thus as a stimulus, however, need not 
be the same in number as that of the sounding 
body of air or wood, for example, but must be 
related to it according to the laws of overtones 
with whose series it has a common part. We 
shall illustrate this in the following manner. 
When the low C string of a Cello is vigorously 
struck, not only is that particular tone sound- 
ing, but a great number of harmonic tones, gen- 
erated by its automatic division into halves, 
thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, etc., in which case 
the tone of the string may be compared to the 
base of a veritable pyramid of sound, the har- 
monics being fainter the higher they are in 
pitch. They all appear simultaneously, of 
course, their number and intensity being part- 
ly dependent upon the intensity with which the 
ground-tone is struck, though a few of them are 
implicit in the fact of their being any ground- 
tone at all. If the low tone be C, its first over- 
tone, being generated by the string vibrating 
in halves, will be a note of the same name, but 
its pitch will be an octave above the generating 
tone; the second one will be G, one fifth above 

186 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

the first, being generated by the string vibrating 
in thirds, and so, as in the table following: 



Amount of string 



Tones and Over- 


Name of Note 


vibrating to 


tones 




produce it 


Ground tone 


C 


Entire string 


First overtone 


c 


half 


Second 


g 


third 


Third 


C 


fourth 


Fourth 


e' 


fifth 


Fifth 


S' 


etc. 


Sixth 


b' flat* 




Seventh 


c" 




Eighth 


d" 




Ninth 


e" 




Tenth 


f" sharp* 




Eleventh 


g" 




Twelfth 


a' "* 




Thirteenth 


b' " flat* 




Fourteenth 


b" " natural 




Fifteenth 


c 





Now mark well this sign (*) in the above 
scheme. For where it occurs it means that the 
notes so designated are all too flat to be used 
in the diatonic scale, even though they were 
generated out of "pure nature" and represent 
the natural development of overtones from a 
low, generating string. Even a Stradivarius or 
Guarnerius Cello will fail to produce anything 
more available for music than these, which sim- 
ply means that the "natural" order of tones as 
above developed is but one of the tone-orders, 
coincident at some points with the order of 
presentable music, but diverging from it at 
many others. In other words, we use only cer- 
tain special tones of the "natural" note series 
in the chromatic scale, discarding those which 
would clash with some of the harmonic tones 
generated from certain other ground-tones. 

187 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

For when we want an f-sharp that will give 
keenness to the tonality G, — as the note b-nat- 
ural does to the tonality C, — we do not select 
nature's f-sharp as derived from C, (as in the 
above scheme), but we derive it from a ground- 
tone D, in which case it will be generated as 
the fourth overtone of that series. And not 
only is the whole keyboard scale of the piano 
made in this careful, searching manner, but 
even then, the various scales are tempered to 
each other, so that transitions from one key to 
another will be possible enharmonically. 
That is we employ the note midway between G 
and A, for instance, as either G-sharp or A-flat, 
depending upon the tonality about to be en- 
tered or passed through. This account may 
briefly suffice to give a hint as to the intricate 
nature of the series of tones, whether due to 
pendular or non-pendular vibrations. The 
point to be made in passing is, that just as the 
lowest string of the Cello arouses its popula- 
tion of overtones, so will any sounding body 
tend to throw into vibrations any other body 
within effective range, whose natural rate of 
vibration is the same as its fundamental or the 
same as one of its partials. But we shall meet 
with a corollary to this law in connection with 
difference tones. 

188 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

85. Strictly psychological is the matter of 
tonal intensity. Two notes, equally intense, 
when played together, will not produce a re- 
sultant of double the intensity. If one asks 
whether it is 3/4, 4/5, or any other fraction of 
it, no answer can be given. It is not less, to be 
sure, nor is it twice as much, but as hinted at 
before, the intensity series rarely consists of 
anything but primes. We met with much the 
same situation in connection with the dermal 
senses. The eccentric reference of a local- 
sign as exhibited there is paralleled in one of 
our responses to notes which are near the low- 
er limit of audible pitch. If the note 30 vibra- 
tions be produced on the Ebbinghaus acoustical 
apparatus, and carefully attended to, it will ap- 
pear to have a recognizable pitch, and be heard 
in its proper place in the series. Now let the 
note of 60 vibrations be sounded, noticed, and 
followed by the previous lower tone, and the 
observer will detect that the lower note was 
formerly heard too high, thus indicating that 
the straight, linear series of tones in physics, 
became curved at its end to the unaided ear, so 
that almost any note between 25 and 32 vibra- 
tions per second would have appeared of the 
same pitch. Here then would be a case of un- 
changing sensory content with changing stimuli, 

189 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

a thing not so very different, so far as series 
are concerned, from the phenomenon of various 
means producing the tickle sensation, or the 
sense of pain. 

86. We have mentioned so far three thres- 
holds of pitch. There is now a fourth to be 
considered in connection with the phenomena 
of fusion, summation, contrast and the like. 
This is the threshold of pitch difference, and 
it has been just treated in one of its aspects in 
the previous paragraph. Pitch differences are 
determinable both by a simultaneous and a 
successive presentation of the sources of sound. 
In physics, they are settled by recourse to 
graphic and other methods, but in psychology 
they are referred to the ears, for it is by them 
alone that we gain criteria for the use of tones 
in the realm of art. To come closer to the 
point, a pedantic physicist would hold up his 
hands in horror at the use of certain tonal arid 
harmonic effects in an orchestral symphony. 
Nevertheless, the physics of sound does not 
include the element of the esthetically satisfac- 
tory character of the resolution of a dissonance. 
However, the series of objects which have 
standing in psychology are just as empirical 
as those in any other science, as the reader who 
has followed me is well assured. An orchestra 

190 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

or chorus frequently inhibits many a serious 
tonal error by the dynamic qualities produced 
by its ensemble. 

87. The physicist is acquainted with inhibi- 
tions in the action of interference tubes. An- 
other kind of inhibition is found in the phe- 
nomenon of beats. Beats are a function of 
the difference in the vibration rates of tones 
simultaneously sounding. If we have two 
sources of sound, one of which vibrates 100 
and the other 102 times per second, there will 
be 2 beats per second. Which is to say that 
twice each second the two wave systems will 
coincide and produce a maximum sound (mu- 
tual reinforcement), and twice they will be 
half a wave length apart, and then the sound 
will all but disappear. Now physically, we 
might expect there would be as many audible 
beats of the same character as the numerical 
difference between the vibration rates of the 
notes simultaneously sounding to produce them. 
However, a significant divergence at once ap- 
pears in the qualitative aspect of the increasing 
difference between the generating tones. For 
there are four well-marked qualitative stages 
in beats, which are a psychological series rather 
than a physical one, whereby it is again seen 
that various kinds of quantities and intensities 

191 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

may be co-present in any conscious content. 
Between two notes from one to six or seven 
vibrations apart, the beats have a well-marked 
"swell"; when the vibration difference is be- 
tween eight and twenty, a "sudden rise, pointed- 
ness or thrust" is manifest; at a difference of 
twenty to thirty, a rattling effect is produced; 
while the roughness that characterizes a dif- 
ference of about forty vibrations disappears 
entirely at some fifty vibrations per second 
between them. What then appears is con- 
sonance, rather than dissonance, and we have 
fusion in the result as opposed to the previous 
effect. Again, if we keep increasing the dis- 
tance between the two tones, some roughness 
constantly appears until another musical in- 
terval is reached, and so on, as far up the scale 
within an octave as we care to go. Thus the 
musical intervals might be considered in one 
aspect as primes in the beat-series, for no 
graphical record of them would give a hint 
as to the places where fusions of consonance 
pop up as it proceeds. Of psychological inter- 
est, again, is the differing qualitative and quan- 
titative character of the fusion value of the 
various intervals generated by the beat series. 
This is evidenced by the fact that the musical 
intervals which in linear series are the unison, 

192 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on are not 
better and better fusions in this order, but in 
another one entirely, — this again not deducible 
from the physical aspect of tones. Let me indi- 
cate in a table the relations between the two 
series. 

I. Order of appearance II. Order of fusion of 
of intervals in the the same intervals: 
beat series: 



Minor second 
Major second 
Minor third 
Major third 
Fourth 

Augmented fourth 
Fifth 

Minor sixth 
Augmented fifth 
Major sixth 
Natural seventh 
Major seventh 
Octave 



Octave 
Fifth 
Fourth 
Major third 
Major sixth 
Natural Seventh 
Minor third 
Minor sixth 
Augmented Fourth 
Augmented fifth 
Major seventh 
Major second 
Minor second 



The second column above is a trifle individual, 
but even then it represents the matter fairly. 
The series of fusions thus given appears once 
more to form quite an independent series, a 
series which may be exactly termed the second 
derivative of beats, but which again in a strik- 

193 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
ing manner harks back to physics in this way, 
— that these intervals are the same as those 
derived from the harmonic notes of the "nat- 
ural" vibrations of strings. The simpler the 
ratios of the above intervals, furthermore, the 
sooner they appear in the natural system of 
overtones. 

88. But yet another set of empirical data 
is to be presented. Beats produced between 
two very high notes, say about 1,000 vibrations 
per second, show only one stage of the above 
four qualities: they chirp rather than rattle or 
roughen. Again, the two lowest strings of the 
Cello when sounded together in the seemingly 
consonant interval of the fifth, produce beats; 
just as any two low notes, no matter how con- 
sonant, (barring the octave and unison), lack 
the smooth character of the same intervals in 
the middle register of the scale. Beats can also 
be produced by two dissonant tones when each 
is led through a tube to either ear, even when 
the separate tones are inaudible. This phe- 
nomenon is due to the action of the bony ap- 
paratus of the middle ear, and is termed "bi- 
naural beats". Substantially the same phe- 
nomenon is met with in many other modalities 
besides sound, but oftener as a fusion-resultant 
than as a case of inhibition. There is at pres- 

194 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ent some inclination among students of tone 
to consider pitch as equivalent to local-sign, 
and to regard the musical intervals in the same 
way as the fusion of two touches or colds upon 
the skin surface. Accordingly, if only a few 
beats per second were present, there would be 
an intermediate locus for the beat-tone of three 
or four vibrations per second, but insofar as 
the musical scale is concerned, its "position" 
would be assimilated by one of the generating 
notes. Following this, the concept of tones as 
a linear series would have to include the attrib- 
ute of bi-dimensionality. Hints as to the prob- 
able correctness of this view will appear in 
the general treatment of the psychological 
nature of the scale, soon to follow. As a matter 
of fact, beats are heard as "fluctuations of a 
single tone, whose pitch is indistinguishable 
from that of the generators". Upon increasing 
the difference between them, the number of 
beats actually functions a tone quality, recog- 
nized as an intermediate tone, "which at first 
lies near the lower generator, and gradually 
rises in pitch until it approaches the upper", 
granting the ever-widening distance between 
the two generators. At the point where the 
beats become rough, however, the tonality of 



195 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
the intermediate tone which carries them is 
lost, and we hear only its noisy aspect. 

89. Another singular datum is the difTer- 
ence-tone. When two notes in the medium or 
upper register thirty or more vibrations apart 
are sounding together, there will be heard an 
entirely new tone, very deep in pitch, of as 
many vibrations as the arithmetical difference 
between those of the generators. This might 
well be called the undertone, in distinction to 
the overtones previously described. Under fa- 
vorable conditions, also, as many as four or 
five of these undertones can be produced, whose 
pitches coincide with the following scheme. 

Let u be the vibration rate of the upper 
generating tone, and / be the vibration rate of 
the lower, and Dl, D2, D3, D4, D5 be the sym- 
bols for the various undertones, then Dl= u — /, 
D2 = 2l — u,D3 = 31— 2u, D4 = 4/ — 3u, and 
D5 = 4u, — 5/, etc. 

The final important tonal phenomenon to be 
mentioned is the interruption tone, which has 
strong alliances with the item of beats. The 
number of times a tone is interrupted, as espe- 
cially evidenced on the siren, — but not the siren 
that deceived Ulysses, — becomes the vibration 
rate of a new tone, whose difference from noise 
is significantly correlated with the periodicity 

196 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

of the interruptions. The tone interrupted may 
also combine with the interruption tone in two 
ways; either as a summation efiect, evidenced 
by a note of the combined pitches, or by making 
a difference tone, in the manner ^illustrated 
above. In the case of both difference tones and 
summation tones, it is to be kept in mind that 
they are often generated within the ear, and 
localized furthermore within the head, at a 
point midway between the two tympani. This 
corresponds to the eccentric reference men- 
tioned in connection with the protopathic sys- 
tem of the touch organs. By the use of resona- 
tors, however, some of them can be made the 
subject matter of physics as well as of psy- 
cholog3\ 

90. The musical scale presents an impor- 
tant problem in psychology, independent of 
the mechanical system which produces it. Two 
tones in unison and two tones an octave apart 
are more fused than any of the intermediate 
intervals of the scale. It has been previously 
shown that both beats and musical intervals 
are produced by steadily increasing the differ- 
ence between two generating tones; but what 
the nature of the scale, as a case of order with- 
out exclusive regard for physics is, has not been 

settled. The intervals of the scale, as fusions, 

197 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

are not in the same series as they are in the 
series of increasing pitch differences, for the 
interval of the fifth, for example, which is mid- 
way in this latter series, occupies the second 
place in the fusion series, and the second and 
seventh, as musical intervals, both lie at the 
upper end of the series of fusions. The other 
intervals, likewise, are dispersed in the transi- 
tion from physics to psychology. They are of 
course, both in the conscious cross-section, in- 
asmuch as we know their separate character- 
istics, indeed, almost better than we can speak 
it out. But physical instruments of measure- 
ment, in addition to being detachable sense or- 
gans, respond usually by means of the efferent 
nerve of a different sense than the one they 
were constructed to be an adjunct to. Espe- 
cially is this so in the case of sound, where 
the best we can get from physics is a graphical 
record and not an improved psychological ear. 
So that when one asks what the scale and the 
fusion intervals constitute as an organized sys- 
tem for psychology, he must consider all the 
data investigated, and find his ultimate order 
in what we are as psychologists often led to 
call our favorite interpretations of the facts. 
At the same time in strict logic we discover 
that they are often those principles from which 

198 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

all the data originate, whether they be the stuff 
of physics or of any other realm of investiga- 
tion. Let us then consider the grounds for 
regarding the scale as something other than a 
simple, linear series in but one dimension. The 
pitch rises, to be sure, and as it does so, the 
scale ascends to the octave of the original note. 
Yet in so doing, it ends, from the standpoint of 
fusion, where it began, or at least nearer to 
that position than at any other in the physical 
order. Schematically, then, it loops back to a 
point on the perpendicular erected upon the 
starting point, but in the transition, it extends 
farther from the perpendicular at the interval 
of the second and seventh, than it does at the 
fourth and fifth, making also other curious 
twists and returns before the whole gamut is 
passed through. 

91. It is not my intention to state any solu- 
tion for this intricate problem, but only to show 
why it cannot be regarded as a serious one. 
There are other orders than the rational, other 
dimensions than those handed down as a leg- 
acy from Euclid, and the fusion order of the 
musical intervals does not perplex any one who 
understands the havoc time plays with deduc- 
tion, as already illustrated at every place where 
opportunity afforded. Some problems are 

199 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

solved by sheer brute force, others by the appli- 
cation of analogies, and still others by being 
dropped. Expectancy is not the cue to the cor- 
rectness of an answer, and in regard to this 
question of the "rationality" of the fusion in- 
tervals of the scale, it can be readily shown why 
the order of preferences takes precedence over 
the order of vibration ratios and their geometri- 
cal relations to each other. This is the evidence : 

(1) To determine the fusion values of the 
various intervals, one must ask for preferential 
judgments from musical subjects. 

(2) Likewise, one must ask unmusical sub- 
jects whether they hear one or two notes in the 
interval, and how clearly they hear them: fu- 
sion being a case of partial inhibition. 

(3) Judgments of the amount of fusion are 
within the realm of "psychological quantity", 
— a series, by the way, which is as likely to 
contain all primes as it is to contain other 
integers of an ordinal relationship. 

(4) While the intervals of the octave, fifth, 
fourth, third, and the like are correlated with 
the mathematical ratios of 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5, 
3/5, 5/6, 5/8, and so on, and while the geomet- 
rical ratios between them may be exactly 
specified, the simplicity of these ratios does not 
compare with the simplicity of the conscious 

200 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

content produced by them. Besides, no constant 
geometrical ratio exists between the ratios of 
these intervals, unless they are arranged in a 
series conflicting with them as a series of pref- 
erences. Even then it is poor. 1/2 is 3/4 of 2/3, 
2/3 is 8/9 of 3/4, 3/4 is 15/16 of 4/5,— so far very 
well; but nothing whatever can be done with 
such ratios except to lay hold of their simplicity 
as an evidence that fusion has evident mathe- 
matical correlates. But this is saying nothing 
more than that correlative simplicities are 
found between physics and psycholog>\ This 
is good news, to be sure, yet it requires nothing 
beyond psychology to tell us that a fusion is a 
psychological simplicity. Search for all other 
information is quite unnecessary, and the in- 
sistence that physics and psychology should co- 
incide at every point is but a symptom of 
fatuous hankering after causes. The fusion 
series is, whatever else it may be, psychological, 
and as such exhibits the independent status of 
some of the data of psychology. That it is em- 
pirical, and open to any investigator who cares 
to inspect it, goes without saying. For be it 
well remembered that nothing was ever taken 
out of the public universe by its being called 
"mental", the mental for all practical purposes 
being only the "not yet mentioned". And some- 

201 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

thing specific has been said on a previous page 
in regard to unformulated statements, which 
does not need repetition here. 

92. It will be sufficient, in the brief space 
yet to be devoted to sound, to indicate only a 
few cases in which the attributes of sensation 
particularly apply to this modality in a way 
not evidenced in the other sense fields. The 
strictly qualitive character of intensity has been 
shown in connection with intervals, and it as 
well applies to chords of three or more notes. 
The latency of sound is very short, muscular 
reactions to auditory stimuli being the quickest 
of the sensori-motor releases. Sounds made on 
musical instruments with many and strong 
overtones have a roominess (extensity) greater 
than that of the sounds produced by such in- 
struments as the flute, which is weak in over- 
tones. Duration and after-image concern us 
in the question of the discrimination of pitch 
differences. If two tones are successively given 
to us to distinguish as to pitch, the interval be- 
tween their presentation, the length of presenta- 
tion, and the character of the after-image will 
all determine whether by a good ear they shall 
be judged to be the same or different. Ordi- 
narily, 64.0 vibrations is in this way just dis- 
tinguishable from 64.15 vibrations per second; 

202 



I 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

and 2048.0 from 2048.36 vibrations. In an ex- 
periment performed by Dr. H. T. Moore in The 
Harvard Psychological Laboratory on Conson- 
ance and Dissonance, it was shown that after 
listening to the prolongation of two tones a 
dissonant interval apart, the two generating 
tones became inaudible after four or five min- 
utes, — nothing being heard thereafter except 
the rattling of the intertone localized within the 
ears. This illustrates the attribute of exhaus- 
tion. Adaptation is too well known, as in cases 
of the street cars and city clocks, to need 
further comment. In symphonic music is ex- 
hibited to a striking degree many phases of 
the phenomena of fusion, contrast and clear- 
ness. Vividness is well illustrated in the case 
of the exceedingly low degree of intensity 
required to elevate the bel canto passages of 
music into focality. Fusions furnish a hint as 
to one function of consciousness underlying the 
feeling-tone of sounds, while the pleasantness 
or unpleasantness of human voices are directly 
referable to the status of their owners in the 
social self. Local sign will be especially treated 
in the sections on space perception. In this 
connection, also, the vestibular organs of the 
ear will be functionally related to the responses 
of orientation. 

203 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

Questions on Audition. 

1. State briefly, and in the order of their 
importance, the significant differences between 
the physics and the psychology of sound. 

2. Which of the attributes of sensation 
appear first in a melody (succession of single 
notes), as contrasted with those appearing in 
a harmonized melody (two — , three — , or four- 
part combination of tones) ? 

Vision. 
93. The gross structure of the eye can easily 
be demonstrated by means of models, charts, 
and by the dissecting of a specimen. Structure 
need concern us only in its connection with 
function, to which we at once turn. It will be 
sufficient at the start to indicate merely the 
course of a beam of light upon entering the 
eye and its various effects upon that organ. 
The cornea is of interest chiefly in cases where 
it is misshapen, — in astigmatism, — that has to 
be corrected by the use of eyeglasses which, 
according to the laws of optics, make up for 
its lack of regularity. Behind the cornea is 
the aqueous humour, and behind that is the 
iris, which acts as an accommodation apparatus, 
functioning the intensity of light. It thus en- 
larges or reduces the size of its aperture accord- 
ing to the diminution or increase of intensity, 

204 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 
unless inhibited from doing so by drugs. Its 
latency is long, as everyone has experienced 
when going suddenly from a sunny room to a 
dark one, and vice versa. The lens, which lies 
behind the iris, possesses a unique accommoda- 
tion apparatus, likewise, and functions the 
distance of the stimulus. Muscles at its edge 
pull it flat or push it into a thickened form, 
with somewhat less latency than occurs in the 
iris reflex. However, loss of the lens through 
an operation for cataract does not preclude 
the possibility of vision, for a certain correctly- 
made artificial eye-glass lens will restore the 
visual function nearly to its normal. In the 
case of wearing such an adjustable sense organ 
in front of the eye, it is difficult to draw the 
line between the physiological and the physical, 
functionally construed. Similarly, in the use 
of tele-, micro-, stereo-, and pseudo-scopes, the 
eye does not end at the cornea, inasmuch as 
the conscious content we obtain by the use of 
these instruments is functioned for by the com- 
plex of eye-instrument, and not by the use of 
the eye alone. The function of the lens of the 
eye is the same as that of any bi-convex lens, 
and by means of it the rays of light entering 
the eye are projected toward the retina. If the 
eye-ball is too long, and the incoming rays of 

205 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

light do not reach the retina, a concave lens is 
used in eye-glasses to remedy this defect, known 
as near-sightedness; if the eye-ball is too short, 
as in far-sightedness, the rays focus behind the 
retina, and a convex lens is used instead. In 
either case, as before, the functioning eye is 
constituted out of all that goes to make up the 
vision apparatus in or about the head. 

94. According to the laws of physiological 
optics, the stimulus for vision is the image of 
the object on the retina. But this is not a fair 
statement of the case in psychology. The stim- 
ulus for vision is the object which one sees, 
whether it be something one can also touch, or 
whether it be some impalpable object in a 
dream or an hallucination. Of these stimuli 
for vision, there are two: colors and shapes, 
which, as has been mentioned before, may be 
anywhere. By color I mean anything one sees 
which is not a shape, thus including those con- 
tents called grays, whites and blacks, as well 
as the usual spectrum effects. Insofar as the 
image on the retina is concerned, it is in and 
of the object, just as is the wave-length of solar 
light: just as we hear tones rather than vibra- 
tions, so we see colors rather than the numeri- 
cal status of their wave lengths. In the same 
manner we smell smells, which may be mem- 

206 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

bers of the III, IV, and V groups in chemistry 
as well, and we feel cold and warmth without 
first determining their position on the ther- 
mometer scale. In pain, the distinction between 
stimulus and content is even more strikingly 
made. The history of experimentation upon 
vision is murky with the conclusions which 
have been drawn from half-baked tests upon 
the action of the eye, — cases of the experimenter 
knowing everything that was going on, and of 
the subject being interpreted as having only 
that knowledge which the experimenter chose 
to favor him with. Bishop George Berkeley 
showed that we never see depth, but this was 
only another case of the "unthinkable having 
been carefully thought out". By flashing a 
pencil of light into the eye at an oblique angle, 
Purkinje showed that one could see his own 
optical blood vessels out in space, for what 
reason and with what conclusions heaven only 
knows; while a certain Le Cat demonstrated, 
by means of a card and a pin held up before 
the eye inside of the focal distance that every- 
thing we see is upside down! From all these 
and similar tricks of opticians one needs to be 
emphatically warned. We may not see depth, 
but we perceive that some things are nearer or 
farther than are others; and groans need never 

207 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

arise from the fact that the retinal image is 
inverted. The retinal image is not a datum in 
the psychology of vision, nor do we ever see 
or feel it. Furthermore, objects are seen right 
side up, indeed just as they are, for the psy- 
chological status of the retina is one of func- 
tional dependence, and psysiological optics 
holds mortgages on nothing in the eye except 
the bare physical aspect of the watery media, 
the cornea, and the lens. We saw, in connec- 
tion with sound, that certain series had com- 
mon parts in physics and psychology, while 
certain others did not at all. In vision, how- 
ever, we shall see that color sensations are even 
less tangential to the series of physical de- 
terminations than was true in the case of 
auditory qualities. What else can it be than a 
downright subtraction from fact to palm off on 
science a single insignificant phenomenon for 
the whole cross-section of vision, and to insist 
that the parts which make up a whole in physics 
are the only kind of parts with which men of 
empirical minds can have anything to do? 

95. To cite another as well as a last case 
of artifact in vision, the images of objects fall- 
ing upon the retina are said by some to proceed 
to the brain, thence to be "projected" outward 
into the air into or on top of the object of sen- 

208 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

sation in order that vision may be accomplished. 
This is not only absurd, but more than that, it 
is a contravention of the entire data involved. 
In the first place, the "image" never gets into 
the brain, no more than does the object which 
functions by it: the very last place where ob- 
jects sequester is the clammy inside of the 
skull. The "image", solely an optical datum, 
is scarcely more than a datum for the uncon- 
scious retinal mechanism; it is not a content 
of visual consciousness, — it is solely a content 
of inferred consciousness for the student of 
physiological optics. Nothing gets into the brain 
at all in vision: the stimulus, or object, sends 
light into the eye, and this light acts adequately 
upon the sensitive membrane known as the 
retina, thereby releasing the neural energy 
along the neural connections to whatever 
cerebral localities the function of vision may 
have specific reference. Objects outside of the 
head; releases within the head, — nothing more: 
the periodicity of light waves and the periodi- 
city of neural releases being functionally re- 
lated and that is all. The actual numerousness 
of the ether vibrations may, indeed, be the 
actual numerousness of the pulses along the 
optic nerve, but that would never necessarily 

209 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

make the optic nerve yellow or blue while 
functioning for those particular colors. 

96. It is interesting to note that there are 
two axes of the eye. Where the optic nerve 
enters on the nasal side in either eye is the 
point which defines the origin of the optical 
axis. This does not coincide, however, with 
the visual axis, which is determined by project- 
ing a diameter through the center of the cornea 
and the center of the lens, thereby making it 
strike the retina farther from the nasal side 
than the optic nerve lies in its circumference. 
Both of these axes are important: the optical, 
for it defines the blind spot where there is no 
functioning for vision; the visual, for it defines 
the spot of clearest color vision, known as 
the fovea. Now the optic nerve, upon entering 
the eye-ball, spreads out in all directions, 
covering the inner surface of it, and is 
further formed into minute terminal organs, 
known by a simile as the rods and cones, which 
point not toward the light, but directly away 
from it. At the fovea there are only cones, and 
at some distance outwards they cease entirely; 
beginning at the periphery there are only rods, 
which decrease in number significantly toward 
the fovea, and ending at that point. The cones 
function for color and the rods for whites, 

210 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

blacks and grays, as well as for the shapes of 
visible objects. Nocturnal animals have only 
rods, while diurnal animals usually have both: 
it is thought that birds and fowls in general 
have only cones. Nevertheless, these animals 
do not appear to distinguish what we specifically 
sense as spectrum colors. In human beings, 
it is to be remembered, there is a larger area 
covered by both rods and cones than the retinal 
space covered by either alone. 

97. The following list of visual sensations 
are to be considered: (a) the chromatic, or 
spectrum color sensations, which are developed 
best by beams of light passing through prisms; 
(b) the white-black-gray series, or achromatic 
sensations, whose relation to the former are 
yet to be in all points determined; (c) the color 
sensations derived by mixing the chromatic and 
achromatic together; (d) the sensations derived 
from textures such as pigments produce in so- 
lution or spread out on surfaces; and (e) the 
shape sensations of objects stimulating the 
retina. One significant thing to be noted in 
connection with chromatic and achromatic sen- 
sations is the paucity of names for the various 
reds, greens, and grays that are constantly 
sensed. Another quirk in terminology comes 
with the determination of the elements one can 

211 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

name ^n every color as distinguishable from 
each other. As a usual thing, hue is the term 
which means the point in the spectrum series 
we are referring to in our naming; tint or 
brightness applies to the likeness of the spec- 
trum color to pure white light; while chroma 
is taken to mean such things as "the blueness 
of the blue", and refers to the amount of gray 
or black not at the time stimulating the retina. 
98. Physicists have offered correlations for 
these three factors in color vision. Correlated 
with hue is the wave length of the ether vibra- 
tions. The longest wave lengths are at the red 
end of the spectrum, while the shortest are at 
the violet end, the wave lengths decreasing with 
ordinal steadiness from red to violet. On the 
other hand, the changes from color to color are 
not so steady. For instance, there is much 
more red than yellow in the spectrum, and much 
more violet than green, as any casual observer 
of the rainbow must have remarked. Again, 
there are many more distinguishable yellows 
and blue-greens packed into a small linear 
space than there are hues of any other color. 
This applies for a constant and equal spectrum 
intensity only, of course, but the independence 
of the physical and the psychological series here 
is nevertheless well marked. Again, even apart 

212 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

from the fact that wave length is sometimes 
correlated with a difference in chroma, (as 
evidenced by the fact that the most naturally 
saturated colors are red and blue, and the least 
yellow and blue-green, — chroma thus being a 
correlate of wave length as well as of wave 
form), the wave length as it changes also brings 
a change of tint, or brightness, yellow being 
the lightest and violet the darkest color of the 
whole spectrum. According to a strict depend- 
ence upon physics, the correlation of energy 
should indicate red, rather than yellow as the 
lightest spectrum color, and blue should be 
much darker than is the case. As a last case 
of negative correlation, any sufficiently intensi- 
fied color is seen as white, and the minimum 
visihile, or the smallest area of stimulus pos- 
sible, is always seen in the achromatic series. 
Contrariwise, any sufficiently enfeebled color 
intensity is functioned as colorless, — on the dark 
side of the white-black series. This phenome- 
non applies for diminution of intensity, also, 
as well as for the extent of the chromatic 
surface. 

99. If one fixates a spot of white on a gray 
background, while a disc of some color is 
brought in from the periphery to the center of 
the visual field, certain changes in the appear- 

213 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ance of the stimulus will be noted. It will first 
appear doubtless as an amorphous gray, then 
as a disc of some color allied to the actual hue, 
and finally as a clear steady chromatic sensa- 
tion. For different colors, the results will be 
different; some of the hues will be sensed truly 
at first focal functioning, while others may pass 
through several curious stages. The upshot of 
such experimentation is to ally the extent of 
cone-covered retina with the functioning of the 
colors by the retinal apparatus in a very definite 
manner. The retina has zones of unequal sen- 
sitivity to the various hues : the inner zone func- 
tions for red and green, the next outward for 
yellow and blue, while the farthest zone, toward 
the periphery, sees everything as a series of 
light and dark grays. The spectrum, when 
thrown upon this outermost zone is likewise 
devoid of chromatic character. But these zones 
are not as distinguishable in function as the 
above statement might imply. They are weak, 
rather than blind to the colors they imperfectly 
function, because sufficient extent and intensity 
of a stimulus in the periphery can bring out 
the known hue perfectly well. In moving a 
patch of color from the fovea to the periphery 
of the field, it is found that it will keep its color 
longer than when the stimulation moves in the 

214 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

opposite direction. High degrees of energy and 
brief periods of stimulation are more efl'ective 
than those of low energy and long duration, 
which is a principle we found illustrated in 
certain phenomena of dermal sensitivity as well. 
But this correlation of intensity with threshold 
of clear color vision does not necessarily mean 
intensity as the physicist construes it, for the 
intensities one meets with in psychology were 
seen earlier in the discussion of sensation to 
be other than of a numerical status, — the in- 
tensity as well as the extensity of sensation 
being in a prime series. Vision offers full sup- 
port to such a scheme of empirical classification. 
100. Among the numerous thresholds met 
with in vision, the following will suffice as a 
sample of their nature. The minimum visihile 
is a threshold, just as is the maximum visihile, 
or the largest patch of color or visual stimulus 
which can be seen at one time. These two 
thresholds would define one sort of series, — the 
bi-dimensional space series. Another threshold 
is the color zone threshold for each and all of 
the colors. The threshold of color identity, of 
identity in tint between any number of chro- 
matic or achromatic sensations, of the greatest 
differences in saturation, or the least; the 
threshold of shape discrimination in the peri- 

215 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

phery of the eye, and similar phenomena are 
samples of the extent to which this attribute 
can be applied. Any terminus ad quern, how- 
ever defined, could without fancy be called by 
the same term name. 

101. Now while the spectrum appears as a 
straight band of hues, psychologically it cannot 
be regarded as such, since various properties 
of color forbid such a looseness in terminology. 
In the first place, for every spectrum color, or 
hue, there is another spectrum color, which, if 
mixed with it, will produce an achromatic sen- 
sation. Thus red and blue-green, yellow and 
blue, and the like, when mixed together, neutral- 
ize each other. But hue, or spectral series 
reference is lacking in the resulting conscious 
content. Schematically, therefore, we shall have 
to regard the spectrum as some sort of a closed 
series, possibly ovoid rather than circular. The 
trans-sensational infra-red and ultra-violet se- 
ries need not be as "long" series as that of the 
visible hues, for since the spectrum is a dis- 
persion phenomenon, apparent distances in the 
spread of the dispersed light may be but one 
of the natural series, and not by any means 
the fundamental one. There is no need, on the 
other hand, of insisting that the logic of color, 
— the principle of color clarification, — be lim- 

216 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ited to the ordinary concept of two or three 
dimensions. The properties of color mixture, 
cok)r contrast, after-images, and the like point 
not to a fundamental principle which maintains 
the naive naming of colors as the ultimate hasis 
of their existence. 

102. Before stating that principle as it 
should be formulated, let us examine the phe- 
nomena which make it both necessary and in 
line with induction. As to color mixture, not 
only will certain pairs of spectrum colors pro- 
duce a gray, but two colors out of such gray- 
producing position in the spectrum series will 
produce a hue dependent upon the relative 
amounts and intensities of the two colors, with 
a variation in saturation or chroma from the 
originals due to their nearness or remoteness 
in the color series. Here one must keep in mind 
the facts of intrinsic intensity and saturation 
of the spectrum colors as outlined previously. 
Again, the double mixing of pairs of colors fol- 
lows the same laws. Two gray-producing colors 
will, if mixed with two other gray-producing 
colors, produce a third gray whose tint is usually 
the arithmetical mean of the two combinations. 
In the same manner, red and yellow, which give 
or are that hue we call orange, will, if mixed 
with a green-violet blend giving a blue of low 

217 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

saturation, produce a purplish gray. The formu- 
lation of the laws of color mixture is easy within 
certain limits. For example, the first law can 

be stated: C= — , in which gray(G) is derived 
c 

from any two complimentary colors, repre- 
sented by C and c respectively, — complimentary 
referring to position in the spectrum series. The 
second law can be stated in a formula as fol- 
lows: 



C,.C 



w.l.Ci + W.I.C2 ( Ci 



j^i ^ ii> qi ) 



2 

which reads: the mixture of any two non-com- 
plimentary colors (C1.C2) will give a third color 
whose wave length (w. 1.) is intermediate be- 
tween the first two; in which combination, 
furthermore, the hue of one color {CJ will 
predominate over that of the other (Cg) in 
proportion as its intensity and quantity (i, q) 
are greater. The third law of color mixture 
may be symbolically stated by the use of the 
expression, 

103. Now, so far as psychology is concerned, 
identical contents, such as result from fusion 
(color mixture), are expressed in the same 



218 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

terms, — that is, by expressions of identity. Many 
stimuli are painful, and many combinations 
give gray. And while psychological simplicity 
is never to be confused with logical simplicity, 
yet the "new" things in psychology are just as 
much terms in science as are the physical terms 
of the stimulus. For we saw that the fusion 
intervals in music were a series, just as were 
the vibration differences which produced them. 
Psychological simplicity, or naivete, must be 
sharply distinguished from the perception of 
prime relations between non-physical proper- 
ties; all we urge is that the chronogenetic order 
be not taken for the logical one without suffi- 
cient warrant. As it is, the two may sometimes 
coincide, but the point is that their coincidence 
has importance only after inspection rather than 
before it. 

104. Color mixing is not only possible with 
lights, but with the use of rotating discs, con- 
taining various sizes of sectors of pigment colors 
spread out on various textures. If such a disc 
is fixated, while revolving, various phenomena 
will be observed. Suppose the disc to be equally 
divided between two colors, say yellow and 
blue, to the right and left of the vertical respec- 
tively. One vertical half of the retina will then 
be blue-stimulated, the other half will be yel- 

219 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
low-stimulated. Upon rotation of the disc, that 
half of the retina formerly stimulated by the 
blue will first be gradually and then completely 
stimulated by the yellow half of the disc, and 
so on, — the alternations of stimulation compar- 
ing wdth the spacial relations of the two rotat- 
ing colors. The colors are thus retinally mixed. 
However, a certain rate of rotation is required 
before complete fusion occurs. At a low speed 
only a flickering impression will be produced, 
which phenomenon is actually not one of hue 
as such, but of tint or brightness, — the speed 
required to abolish flicker being greater with 
the brighter colors. The "likeness to white" 
of the rotating colors is thus actually seen as 
a partially isolated element. When fusion is 
finally accomplished by the above means, it is 
due to the fact of positive retinal after-images, 
for if the blue sensation had lasted no longer 
than the blue stimulation, a gray resultant 
would never have been produced. Part of the 
stimulus lags behind the temporal duration of 
visual presentation, thus making one of the 
terms in color mixture which is independent 
of the physical nature of the stimulus. In mov- 
ing pictures and fireworks the same phenome- 
non of after-images is to be observed. The fol- 
lowing special aspect of flicker is also note- 

220 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

worthy. Before the threshold of fusion is 
reached, two kinds of flicker are observable, 
— coarse and fine; and the brightness of the 
coarse flicker is even greater than that of the 
resulting, fused sensation. Besides, upon let- 
ting the impression of the rotating disc fall upon 
the periphery of the eye instead of directly upon 
the fovea, the number of rotations of the disc 
per second required to abolish the flicker is 
considerably greater. The function of the rods 
of the retina has been previously shown to 
account for this. If, now, one compares color 
fusions with tonal fusions, he will see a differ- 
ence between them on the side of physical 
quantity. For upon steadily increasing the dis- 
tance between two tones, after fusion is ob- 
tained, the consonance is at once exchanged 
for dissonance, after which, consonance once 
more appears, then dissonance, and so on in 
alternation. Whereas, after color fusion is ob- 
tained on a color wheel, no increase in the 
rotation rate will make any alteration in the 
character of the fusion so produced. Indeed 
most analogies of physical quantity have but 
slight value in psychology. 

105. Fixation of a color does not always 
result similarly. We never adapt to the noon- 
day sun, on account of its intensity, but are 

221 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

always exhausted by it. Besides, such fixation 
results in the provocation of negative after- 
images of long duration, the number of them 
w^hich simultaneously occur being dependent 
upon eye movements which partially rest one 
part of the retina, only to be followed by the 
reappearance of the partially inhibited sensa- 
tion through irradiation and sympathetic induc- 
tion from neighboring, over-stimulated areas. 
For the retina is so sensitive that such a strong 
stimulation as naked sunlight becomes almost 
an inadequate stimulus, as is evidenced by the 
inability to make out the sun's form directly 
after the first instant of fixation upon it. The 
combination of intensity and extensity here 
passes one of the upper thresholds of visual 
sensation. Fixation of milder colors than the 
most intense, causes adaptation, by which we 
mean that every color in the middle range tends 
toward neutrality, — that is, grayness. But the 
color does not become grayer, any more than 
red ever becomes yellow: for all colors are a 
combination of hue, tint and chroma, and "fad- 
ing out" or "becoming yellow" is the naive name 
for the fact that either the total sensation is 
altered by exchanges of identity, or that some 
physical essential property got called by the 
name of a psychological inessential. Never- 

222 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

theless, through adaptation, the color of blue 
or brown spectacles becomes less than focally 
conscious, and wall paper not faded by the sun 
looks less bright or colorful after a while than 
it did at first. The fixation of a colored field 
until it fades (incorrect expression!) followed 
by the fixation of a gray field, is accompanied 
by the negative after-image. But this is no 
enigma, as we shall presently see. 

106. For when the eye fixates a colored 
field, and the after-image replaces the stimulus, 
both conscious contents are identical in some 
constituent element. The hues interchange, it 
is true, but the brightness or saturation remains 
constant. Color sensations thus oscillate about 
some identity in their component parts or at- 
tributes. The color blind person, who asserts 
that my red books are of the same color as my 
green ones, asserts for tint, perhaps, what I 
assert for that complex known as hue-tint, or 
even hue-tint-chroma. We saw that the laws 
of color mixture indicated the gray relation be- 
tween complimentary colors, and that the tint 
and chroma of colors are stated in terms of the 
gray-white-black series of sensations, which 
terms strictly apply to the fusion of colors into 
their neutral components. Similarly the laws 
of the mixture of non-complimentary colors 

223 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

laid their main emphasis upon hue as modified 
by tint and chroma, specifying the intrinsically 
intense effect of the contributing elements. Now, 
whatever color may be, the hues as qualities 
refer also to positions in the spectrum series; 
which, as evidenced by its various phenomena, 
is neither linear, nor spacial, nor anchored irre- 
vocably to quantity. Mixing non-complimentary 
colors toward the red end of the spectrum series 
showed a numerical resultant that was half of 
that of the other two colors; while the mixing 
of red and black, for example, does not give 
a wave length one can find in physics in the 
same way. Bare numerical values give small 
aid here. The colors, called by simple names, 
— "experienced" if you please as undefinable 
states of consciousness, — hold an altogether dif- 
ferent relation to each other than either the 
physicist or the introspective psychologist have 
yet been able to discover. I propose to give 
that relationship as well as possible in the 
brevity of space here available. 

107. The intensity, or brightness of a color 
is its one essential attribute. Hue is incidental. 
This intensity is its psychological intensity, 
(correlated with its wave length or amplitude, 
outside of the realm of psychology as far as one 
pleases), and moreover not predicated of it 

224 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

before we see the color, but afterwards. It is 
a variable corrolary and not axiomatic. The 
yellow and blue which give gray, give the gray 
which results on account of the fact that inhibi- 
tory conditions between the hues abolish them, 
leaving the intensities to be algebraically sum- 
med into the resultant. Fundamentally, then, 
the spectrum is a logico-psychological artifact: 
its linear extent is in no wise indicative of the 

essential nature of color. The formula C= — 

c 

points to the systematization of the various 
colors as schematically represented by a right 
triangle, whose hypothenuse is analogical with 
the result of mixtures. Schematically only, 
however, for there is nothing linear about color, 
nor spacial either, except as the shape series 
and the color series have compatible relations 
in tri-dimensional space. With eyes closed, we 
see a mean gray which is distinguished only in 
point of brightness, — the fundamental color 
attribute. Now that gray which we thus see 
may be equalled by any two complimentary 
colors, just as it may be equalled by a mixture 
of white and black. The hues are positions in 
the spectrum series, it is true, but their posi- 
tions are of no importance to the visual situa- 
tion. The correlating of wave length, wave 

225 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

amplitude, and wave form with the properties 
of color is always done with more or less 
apology, and we may regard the physical vibra- 
tions and forms as quite incidental : the various 
series coincide only with the mathematics 
strapped for consistency. Certainly a rather 
tottering basis for color, this numerical fiction; 
and it is not for psychology to put on a straight- 
jacket to mollify this incompatibility. Let the 
two series be as incompatible as they will: 
apparent homogeneousness is the basis for 
naivete, — not for logical treatments of data. And 
yet the question will doubtless be asked, "are 
not the four so-called psychologically simple 
colors, red, yellow, green, and blue, more funda- 
mental than the attribute of intensity"? These 
four colors look to be unanalysable, while, or- 
ange, violet and the like, are certainly com- 
pounds, or at least can be compounded out of 
the others, whereas no such thing is possible 
with these four. But, if compounding is to be 
made the criterion, all compounding ends with 
the gray series, — gray being the terminus ad 
quern of intensity, adaptation, mixture and 
other color phenomena. Why stop with com- 
pounding at an irrational point? To the painter, 
the primary colors are red, yellow, and blue, 
pigments relegating green to a basis of mixture. 

226 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

To the physicist, the primary colors are red, 
green, and bhie-violet, yellow being a resultant 
of admixing the others. While for the physio- 
logist, the primary colors are whatever few 
colors can act as equilibrants upon the retinal 
apparatus, insofar as the color zones of the eye 
are concerned. Surely that cannot be unlim- 
itedly primary which in this and that field of 
fact changes its status so readily. Sciences are 
fields of functions as well as fields of interests, 
and if a fact is public property, it cannot vanish 
into subsidiary importance upon being ap- 
proached merely from a different angle. Now 
red, or one of the reds of the spectrum and 
"something bluish", are the only two colors 
that retain their primacy throughout the above 
lists of simple colors; but the basis for this is 
choice among a multitude rather than an 
attempt to get behind the spectrum as an ulti- 
mate series. That only a few of the colors are 
requisite for mixings by which the others may 
be obtained, is doubtless exactly the case; but 
here again psychological simplicity has gotten 
the upper hand. Red and green equilibrate 
about gray, and yellow and blue equilibrate 
about gray also, while all the other selections 
of primary hues have been made for the sake 
of finding the fewest spectrum positions which 

227 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
will in summation satisfy all the requirements 
of color. Gray being that about which all these 
terms of color oscillate, the logical primacy of 
this intensity is in need of no more defending 
at present. 

108. Color contrast exhibits certain inter- 
esting derivatives of the fundamental attribute 
of intensity. There are also two kinds of color 
contrast, — simultaneous and successive, — in 
which the temporal and spacial elements per- 
form their usual unique functions. When a 
complimentary color is induced during steady 
fixation, we have a case of simultaneous con- 
trast. When, again, the after-effect is con- 
nected with the fixation of a brighter or darker 
surface than the surface of fixation, the induced 
or equilibrating color will depend for its inten- 
sity upon the elements of the background. Often 
simultaneous induction occurs, — that is, the re- 
turn of the original brightness and hue during 
fixation. Successive contrast is shown in cases 
of fixation followed by eye movements, in which 
case the complimentary hue and brightness is 
induced in the after-image. Contrast is due to 
the mutual interaction of neighboring retinal 
areas and is a diff'erentiating process. Adapta- 
tion, on the other hand, is a function of dura- 
tion and acts as a leveling process. The gen- 

228 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

eral laws of color contrast are as follows : Con- 
trast varies with the degree of antagonism, and 
with the nearness of the juxtaposed colored sur- 
faces or lights; it is enhanced by the elimina- 
tion of contours or boundary lines, is greater 
when there is no simultaneous light contrast, 
and increases not only with the saturation of 
the inducing colors, but also with equal tex- 
tures, as well as with very simple patterns. 
However, prolonged experimentation and use of 
large fields of comparison, both reduce the con- 
trast effects. There is therefore both a time 
and a space threshold in the phenomenon. This 
is new in psychology, and is something like the 
newness of fusion. For colors that are con- 
trasted as well as fused produce an effect not 
deducible from either naive acquaintance and 
expectation, nor yet from a study of color effects 
not involving contrasts and memories of them. 
109. Another function of intensity is the 
Purkinje phenomenon. If we increase the 
amplitude of the light waves in the spectrum, 
gradually the yellow and the blue, with a light 
gray between them, will be the only hues vis- 
ible, while the orange and red will appear yel- 
lower and yellower, and the blue and violet 
become indistinguishable from a bluish green. 
But the whole spectrum shortens, both ends 

229 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

losing their stimulating character. On the other 
hand, upon decreasing the light energy of the 
spectrum we get another series of effects. This 
time orange and yellow drop out entirely, the 
red gets very dark, while blue and violet fuse 
into a bluish-violet, with only the green retain- 
ing its place and hue. Furthermore, all that 
now appears is of dark tint and low chroma. 
The amount of physical change in intensity 
necessary to produce either one of this pair of 
phenomena is called the photochromatic in- 
terval. Besides, it occurs only to a dark-adapted 
eye, that is, one that has been accommodated 
to the dark room in which the Purkinje phe- 
nomenon is being exhibited. Neither will it 
appear when thrown into the eye on that col- 
ony of cones known as the fovea. There being 
no rods at the fovea, the evidence points to this 
phenomenon as being functioned by those 
organs. It might be added that the Purkinje 
phenomenon has the smallest photochromatic 
interval at the extremes of the periphery, — the 
permanently dark-adapted or nyctalopic part of 
the eye. The rest of the retina is hemeralopic, 
or normally day-adapted, — that is, suited for 
hue and mean degrees of brightness. Daylight 
and twilight vision are in evidence when we 
come suddenly from light to dark rooms, just 

230 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

as adaptation is noticed in coming from the 
yellow lighted theatre after a matinee into the 
sunlight, where, by contrast, everything looks 
bluish until the equilibrating functions of the 
retina have readjusted the field. The colors in 
hangings and carpets are often selected for their 
day and night effects, and modern cloth shops 
sell by artificial light such goods as are to be 
worn under similar conditions. 

110. Evidences point to the rods as the 
functioners of daylight and nightlight vision. 
And the specific sine qua non of this function- 
ing is a substance in the rods known as the 
visual purple, or rhodopsis. It is a reddish 
substance, reacting to intensities of light. Under 
a bright illumination it becomes first red, and 
then white. Immediately a pigment in the rods 
creeps up and covers the rhodopsis, thus throw- 
ing them out of action. When the light is dim- 
med, the pigment cells retract and the visual 
purple first yellows, and then whitens. In the 
owl, this photochemical substance is covered 
by day, while in the night it is uncovered. The 
owl having only rods, his day-blindness is thus 
accounted for. If one eye be kept closed while 
the other is receiving stimulations which affect 
its rhodopsis, the same effects will be produced 
in both eyes by sympathetic induction, — so uni- 

231 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

fied are the functions of both retinae. Inasmuch 
as the bleaching is most quickly accomplished 
by green, and most slowly by red light, its con- 
nection with the functioning for intensities, and 
especially night and day vision, is indisputable. 
111. Flicker and rivalry (oscillating inhibi- 
tion) may also be obtained binocularly. One 
eye may get a negative after-image of an object 
given only to the other. A black patch and a 
white patch, binocularly combined in the stereo- 
scope frequently produce a silvery lustre, in 
which case not only the white and black, but 
the textures of the surfaces bearing them have 
to be considered. Something like this we have 
previously met with in connection with the 
Purkinje phenomenon, — I mean the silvery gray 
in the green section of the spectrum series. Bin- 
ocular sensation in this case is combined from 
right and left eye sensory contents separately 
brought to focality, and thus binocular lustre is 
a prime in this series of effects. When flickier 
is present by virtue of separate stimulations 
to the two eyes, it can be reduced by giving 
the same speed in the revolutions of the stimuli 
to both eyes separately as would be required 
with one eye directly. Two combinations of 
flicker separately given to the eyes take the 
same speed to reduce as is required for both 

232 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

eyes together. But when one eye gets a flicker 
eil'ect, while the other eye gets none, the flicker- 
ing effect is considerably dampened in the total, 
semi-fused content resulting from inter-ocular 
functioning, even despite a considerable range 
of brightnesses in the flickerless half of the 
visual field. Another binocular phenomenon is 
found when, by giving two different bright- 
nesses in the visual field to the eyes separately, 
a brightness slightly above the mean of the 
single sensations is produced. This ceases, how- 
ever, when the original differences are very 
great, but rises significantly with dark adapta- 
tion. It is absent, again, when a dark field is 
presented first, and when the dark area is very 
small. 

Question on Vision. 
1. Arrange the colors of the normal spec- 
trum according to greatest-to-least intensity, 
and then according to greatest-to-least satura- 
tion. Compare these two series, singly and to- 
gether, with the "natural" succession of hues 
from red to violet. How many points of iden- 
tity do you find in these three series? How 
many similar tendencies do you find? Discuss 
fully the psychology of color from the above 
standpoint. 



233 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

Perceptions, Meanings, and Speech. 
112. Perception differs from sensation in 
point of structure. Sensations, as representing 
the attribute-thing relationship, were seen to 
be cross-sections of series whose terms were 
to a large degree prime to each other. One 
might well have wondered what could be de- 
duced from their relationships, for so fre- 
quently were they isolated, that bare enumera- 
tion seemed the only introduction and farewell 
they permitted. Nevertheless, simple exhibi- 
tion is all the scientist owes to elemental prop- 
erties, and to treat as blunt matters of fact 
things which exist solely as neutral elements, 
is the only fair course to pursue with them. 
The elements of sensation are not mental, for 
one must go to them without presuppositions. 
And after one has deduced from them what 
seems to be their terminus ad quern, he must 
again frankly apply himself to the facts in order 
to eliminate the cavalier element from his con- 
jecturing. On the other hand, perceptions are 
examples of the part-whole relationship, sub- 
sisting in a complex of simultaneously or suc- 
cessively existing sensations which have a defin- 
able logical structure or unity. It now being 
necessary to distinguish between attributes and 
parts, we shall first say that for psychology there 

234 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

are more specific properties of a whole consti- 
tuted out of parts, than there are specific prop- 
erties of a thing made of attributes. There is, 
indeed, a geometrical increase of such proper- 
ties for wholes over what it is for things. Again, 
sensations refer principally to sensory recep- 
tiveness or sensory acuity; while perceptions 
refer more to the motor element in conscious- 
ness, — the multiplicity of possible responses to 
the same stimulus embedded in different con- 
texts. 

113. Now the parts in a perception are both 
sensations and relations between sensations. A 
patch of red is held up before my eyes, and 
along with other reactions, I respond to the 
duration of the stimulus, whether by adapta- 
tion, exhaustion or what not. But if a patch 
of blue replaces it and gets noticed as blue, and 
if my consciousness becomes verbally expressed 
by, " 'red and blue' supervenes the conscious- 
ness 'red' ", with any additional relational con- 
scious content such as, "two after one", "one 
more", or "formerly one, now two", 1 am per- 
ceiving rather than sensing. Or, to take a more 
familiar example, "that black thing", or an 
object whose color quality alone is being func- 
tioned, would be a sensation, in contrast to 
"that black thing" as "my black silk hat", which 

235 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
would be a perception. It is not a case of the 
intensity of stimulus that makes the difference, 
but of the relations between the sensations, and 
in this particular case, what I am going to do 
about the object stimulating my retinae. It is 
on the basis of the "with-for" relation that per- 
ceptions obtain a rank as focal, forwarding 
elements in consciousness, — a thing sensations 
never get. In sensation the time element is 
reducible to now, the space element to here; 
while in perception the time and space elements 
are never more simply expressed than by the 
compound expression "here and now", their 
relation of togetherness being for perception, 
at least, indissoluble. Not that the attributes 
of duration or extensity in sensation have to 
change clothes in order to be valid in percep- 
tion, but only when duration is present as some- 
thing partly focal and partly fading out of 
focality, has the lower threshold of perception 
been passed. Similarly, the spacial element, 
expressed by the word "here" means a sensa- 
tional element, if everything is equally "here." 
It becomes of a perceptual status, however, if, 
at the same time there is a "here," there is also 
another portion of the content better expressed 
by the contrasting term "there." Considerable 
warning needs to be assimilated at this point. 

236 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

There may be in logic, but there is not in psy- 
chology any necessary distinction between 
"here" and "there" when these terms are used 
isolatedly. Do not say that consciousness is the 
same as speech, for it is not; neither fall into the 
egregious blunder of verbalizing the item re- 
ferred to by verbal symbols. There is a logical 
consciousness, and there is also a verbal or 
speaking consciousness; just as there is func- 
tional consciousness, and a conscious content 
logically separable from it. Sensations are the 
warp and woof of perceptions, and perceptions 
are the stuff out of which logic is made, but 
that does not allow one to say that the series is 
symmetrical. Furthermore, the logical dis- 
tinctions cannot be applied to the sensational 
sources of consciousness as focal elements re- 
siding oginally in them, for the finished pro- 
duct is never the cause of the materials. Thus 
"here" and "now" as elements in sensation 
need have no relational status to what is not 
here or now. For "then" and "there" might never 
occur, and indeed, never do occur, to one not 
engaged in logical considerations, sensation 
being merely the present, immediate qualitative 
and quantitative consciousness, and as such out 
of relation to other and more complicated forms 
of consciousness. 

237 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

114. Space and time have had but slight 
consideration up to this point. Their relation 
to sensation and perception is rarely treated 
with candor. "How do we experience space?" 
and "What is the psychology of time?" are 
questions over which much obscurity has been 
indulged in. It is said, and with truth, that 
the retinal image of a square table-top viewed 
obliquely is by no means square. It is, in fact, 
a spherical surface, with four spherical angles, 
whose sum is greater than that of the four right 
angles of the table-top as a geometrical surface. 
In this case, we are told, memory is invoked, 
and expectation as well, and many a fatuous 
explanation as to how the table-top is perceived 
as square ensues. Likewise in the case of time. 
A half hour in the captivating theatre, as the 
classic example, is shorter psychologically 
than the half hour spent in listening to a ser- 
mon; and then we are slyly asked just how we 
gain an experience of time, with nothing more 
to depend on than such psychological data. 
Now let us frankly admit all these facts as well 
as many more. A person blind from early in- 
fancy, who, in later life, has his sight restored, 
cannot tell the difference between a cube and a 
sphere if he has nothing more than his retinae 
with which to function the object. Also, a 

238 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

blindfolded subject who is asked to tap contiii- 
ously an interval given only once or twice by 
auditory stimulations, will, in the course of 
the tapping, enlarge some intervals and con- 
tract some others, remaining steady and accu- 
rate only when the "indifii'erence" period exists 
between the stimuli. But when all our senses 
are active, there is a geometrical increase of ac- 
curacy in space and time judgments, and so 
when the question of dermal, visual or auditory 
space and time perceptions is up for discussion, 
we always have to remember that a whole has 
properties not implicit in the properties of the 
parts; and also that while visual space, — audi- 
tory space, — and dermal space-perception, when 
occuring singly, are all poor, yet, that a summa- 
tion of space perceptions as given by all these 
means together is far more accurate than their 
combined effects would arithmetically indicate. 
Similarly, in the case of time. Besides, as spe- 
cifically mentioned before, we have some other 
means whereby to determine spaces and times 
than by our naive sense organs, either singly 
or in combination. Our physical instruments 
of precision, — mathematically true eyes and 
ears that they are, — not only function to correct 
the errors of naive perceptions, but even to cor- 
rect their own errors as well. Therefore, to 

239 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

speak of space and time perceptions as being 
dependent solely upon the unmathematical 
sense organs is an example of deliberate self 
abasement and self delusion. 

115. But let us nevertheless exhibit just the 
extent to which naive space and time are in 
need of correction. Let us also examine the 
data by which we ever got the hint for the de- 
velopment of self correcting devices in the at- 
tempt to infinitessimalize space and time. In 
every science, the taking of a set of measure- 
ments involves the determination of the result- 
ing value. "Only when" is the scientists' goal 
in an experiment, and not the goal determined 
by his expectation. Otherwise, Paddock calls, 
and careful analysis of the results always show 
a "trace" of faking. Control of the conditions 
without hindering the freedom of the function 
to be investigated, is all the experimenter can 
ask, though frequently some slight bonus for 
doing so is smuggled into the final reckoning. 
But whenever we wish to find some such datum 
as a threshold, let us say, we take not one, but 
many measurements. These measurements are 
not identical, to be sure, but they always group 
themselves about a common terminus ad quern, 
— about a standard, average, or mean, which 
may or may not be one of the recorded measure- 

240 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ments. Now this grouping about an average 
is significant, in that it usually defines what is 
known as a curve of probability, or a Gauss 
curve. Such a curve represents a tendency of, 
rather than an identit}^ betw^een, the measure- 
ments, — just as we spoke of the threshold being 
a quantitative tendency. It is not something 
peculiar to psychological measurements, but is 
met with in every set of scientific determina- 
tions. Not only is this central tendency im- 
portant, however, but also is the percentage of 
deviations from it, as well as their amount pro 
rata; for often tw^o averages, derived from two 
independent sets of measurements will be the 
same, w^hile the deviations from these averages 
will be the only thing significantly describing 
their diff'erences. It then becomes necessary 
to pause and see just what numbers mean in 
such a situation. The rougher or finer the work 
is done, the greater or less general deviation 
from the central tendency will usually occur; 
but in any case, the result sought for will have 
to be admitted to be not some such unvarying 
quantity, such as 8, but only a quantity greater 
than 7 and less than 9. And if any one be dis- 
appointed at this, his disappointment of course 
comes about through the fact that to infinites- 
simalize space and time, whether or no, involves 

241 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

the fallacy of regarding continuity of measuring 
as necessarily bound up with the discreteness 
of recorded measurements. Curved lines are 
not a succession of tiny straight ones, and the 
mean, or average of a set of determinations is 
quite useless without their average deviation 
from that average. This is also why we speak 
of the diameter of a circle as its most accurate 
dimension, since the circumference, which is 
in the prime relation of "tt" to it, is incommen- 
surable. 

116. Of the many methods possible in ex- 
perimentation, I shall outline but three. The 
method of mean error consists in having the 
subject himself reproduce the quantity of the 
standard measurement as closely as he can. 
Given a vertical line on a card, whose length he 
is to reproduce in a horizontal line, for example, 
the time intervals between the exhibition of 
standards, and both the accuracy and time taken 
to reproduce the line are recorded. Exceed- 
ingly great variability appears in the results of 
such a method, as one might expect. The other 
two methods, the limiting and the constant, are 
more fruitful, — all the conditions being pre- 
scribed by the experimenter. The limiting 
method consists of presenting graded variables 
to the subject, who judges them in terms of each 

242 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

other, giving such answers as "greater," "less," 
"equal," and the like. Now, in such a case, not 
only do simultaneity and succession play a big 
part, but such things as the rightness or leftness 
of the standard from the variable. The num- 
ber of measurements often taken in such a case 
is enormous, in order to cover all the possible 
permutations and combinations. Furthermore, 
the threshold may be obtained in four ways: 

(1) by taking a variable greater than the stand- 
ard and decreasing the amount between it and 
the standard until no difference is observable; 

(2) to start with two equal stimuli and increase 
their difference until one is much greater than 
the standard; (3) to start again with two equal 
stimuli and decrease one below the value of 
the standard; and (4) to start with one variable 
way below the standard and approach it, as 
in the first case above, (1). The constant meth- 
od consists of an irregular presentation of vari- 
ables along with the standard, wdth no regular 
series of differences between the pairs as pre- 
sented. One reason why these various methods 
are all employed is that wdth different material 
different methods are desirable, so as not to 
interrupt the function to be investigated. Be- 
sides, too slight differences between the pairs 
of stimuli are deadly to the selective attention 

243 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

of the subject, anaesthetizing him against the 
ability to discriminate. For when only contra- 
dictions and negations result, they are taken 
to mean that one is on the wrong tack. 

117. This will give an indication, not only 
of the method employed to find thresholds and 
the like in sensation, but of the method to de- 
termine naive space and time estimation as 
well. If we wish to know what "similarity" in 
psychology means, we take stimuli in which 
there is something identical, as determined by 
all possible means, and present them to a sub- 
ject who has not yet made such a determina- 
tion. Whatever he takes or mistakes (no dis- 
tinction here) for identity, is made the basis of 
similarity. Without any slur on his intelli- 
gence, the subject in an experimentation has 
only to keep even-minded and naive, — it being 
the business of the experimenter to plan un- 
expectancies and keep from coaxing results. 
That is to say, the experimenter regards the 
data of the experiment as lying in several series, 
but the subject's responses are narrowed to the 
one series about which certain information is 
desired. They both know equally what is go- 
ing on, except that the subject is not prepared 
for the exact order of the presentations. 

118. Psychological things have as much be- 

244 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ing as have any other things. Strictly speak- 
ing, there are no illusions. The psychological 
order is not the only order into which things 
get, and by virtue of the world not being a 
charming and fragrant unity, we have contrasts, 
contradictions and incompatibilities. Thus the 
bent stick in water is both a bent and a straight 
stick, the refractive power of water being a 
perfectly empirical fact. The psychological 
(naive ocular) stick, and the physical stick ex- 
ist cozily together; the one that is bent being 
made both of wood and of the index of refrac- 
tion for water, and of certain properties of the 
eye, while the straight stick is made of wood 
only. If one be asked whether the stick is bent 
or not, the answer cannot be wrong, no matter 
how stated; for the question is put in ambiguous 
language, not specifying which stick is meant. 
Every so-called illusion is either due to a tricky 
question, or to the fact that but one sense is 
operative where normally all the senses giving 
data germane to the stimulus contribute to the 
perceptive consciousness. Naive space and 
time determinations are not therefore illusions, 
but merely and frankly terms of series exist- 
ing with, while being more or less opposed to, 
those determinations made with that set of de- 



245 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tachable sense organs known as instruments of 
physical precision. 

119. If the subject closes his eyes, and a 
pencil be drawn over the skin of his hand, and 
he be asked how long a line it traced, his an- 
swer will be naive and erroneous. Our skin is 
not pock-marked with calibrations, and hence 
we do not know such things as dermal inches 
or millimetres. Yet here naive dermal space 
and time are clearly exhibited. If a bristle be 
attached to the tine of a tuning fork and the 
fork is struck and laid on the skin, we cannot 
count the vibrations, though they may be sep- 
arately felt. This is the dermal perception of 
number. If the subject's arm is placed in a 
tilting frame and gently moved, the extent of 
the movement will be stated in terms on the 
basis of which no accurately calibrated scale 
could ever be made. A single point placed di- 
rectly in the visual axis of the eye and moved 
forward or back with reference to the subject, 
cannot be seen to have changed its position. If 
the eyes are closed and a clicking stimulus is 
sounded at various positions with regard to the 
head, those back and front will be interchanged 
in the report almost haphazardly, while those 
from side to side will get into series compatible 
with what the experimenter knows, and what 

246 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

the subject would too, if he did but open his 
eyes. With the James Artificial Waterfall one 
can get negative after-images of movement, 
and of course one asks whether the ribbed belt 
is actually reversing. The answer is that the 
physical belt as a whole is stationary, but that 
certain parts of it which have no position, (hav- 
ing any position whatever), need not be still. 
That much of our sea-faring friends as is func- 
tioned by our timidity, dies in every storm 
which sets us in a fear, while the ship bearing 
them may at the same time be making twenty 
knots in good, calm weather. As with sensa- 
tion, so with perception; an object is something 
that will stimulate, and naive perception is not 
one of the functions of the organism with ref- 
erence to the stimulus within the encasing en- 
vironment which can be summarily pushed 
aside. 

120. Naive time perception is a function 
of several different things. Owing to the na- 
ture of the sense organs, stimulation produces 
consciousness which continually alters as to its 
focus, unless reinforcements are forthcoming 
from other means than the stimulus itself. I 
mean the environment within and without the 
body. The fading of a sensation out of focality 
is accompanied by the relational consciousness 

247 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

of the change. It may not be called by any 
suitable name, but is signalized by a difference 
in focality, a wilting, and is accompanied by a 
corresponding condition of consciousness name- 
able either as "before-now-after," "less-more," 
or "more-less," or some such non-mental ex- 
pression. Again, the wave of neural discharge 
rises and falls, while, for example, the pulse 
is beating, or the breath being drawn or re- 
leased. These general organic rises and falls 
are the physiological basis of naive time per- 
ception, and the word "now" means any neural 
continuity or equilibrium which is homogene- 
ously focal in consciousness. However, "now" 
or "the present" may be regarded as just as 
long as the uninterrupted neural discharge. 
When a writer says, "Let us now consider, etc.," 
he means that he wishes his readers to have a 
focal consciousness whose content is his ideas 
for just as long a time as it takes to peruse his 
statements. If the backgrounds of conscious- 
ness are steadily maintained, "now" is a func- 
tion of that maintenance. "Now" and "then" 
are also interchangeable: any reference to 
events in time past, taken as a whole, means a 
"then." But the sensorial "now," or the present 
time, is always short, while the perceptual or 
logical "now" may be as long as one pleases. 

248 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

That is to say, those things which are axiomatic 
and always dependable are timeless, being in- 
different to any special time or situation. 

121. Time estimations concern such things 
as the following: the number of objects oper- 
ating in the sense field; the strength of the first 
impression, — or the strength of some one of the 
impressions as contrasted with the varying 
strength of the succeeding or simultaneous im- 
pressions; the contrast effects of the sucession 
of unequal intervals of solar time in a series 
of presentations; the alternation of sense fields 
in focality, and similar phenomena. Sometimes 
the expressions "filled" and "unfilled" time are 
spoken of, but this means that interest domin- 
ates the items in the content, and not that the 
time interval is quantitatively altered. One 
curious fact in this connection is the "indiffer- 
ence period." The motor repetition of certain 
time intervals wall be erroneous unless the in- 
terval is some multiple of about 0.7 seconds. 
This particular naive "second" is remarkably 
accurate. Again, if one sits in a chair resting 
the tendon under the knee upon an elevation 
too high to allow the heel to be comfortably 
held on the floor, and starts to jerk the heel up 
and down, the ensuing reflex will continue in 
spite of all volitions to the contrary while re- 

249 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

maining in that position, and the regularity of 
the interval thus maintained will be a close in- 
voluntary standard of time. The sub- and un- 
conscious always function more dependably 
than any one sense field, no matter how focal 
it is. Rhythm may be spoken of as the invol- 
untary grouping of regular stimuli into pat- 
terns, the basis of which grouping is in the sub- 
conscious action of the neural arcs. Multiple, 
rapidly recurring stimuli are not responded to 
separately, but they sum into releases as has 
been indicated before. The initial reflex and 
the after-discharge are veritable elementary 
constituents of the trochaic foot in poetry. And 
no rhythm whatever has been successful which 
demanded grouping contrary to the elemental 
properties of the discharge mechanism of the 
neural arcs. As certain geometrical figures are 
to lines, so rhythms are to time intervals; the 
basis for spacial grouping being extensity, that 
of temporal grouping being intensity. We 
shall treat of the other features of time in con- 
nection with space, with which we shall have 
considerably more to do. 

122. The following psychological space- 
givers are usually enumerated: 

(1) the bi-dimensional field of the passive 
skin, 

250 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

(2) the bi-dimensional field of the active 
skin, 

(3) the tri-dimensional field of the passive 
skin, 

(4) the tri-dimensional field of the active 
skin, 

(5) the bi-dimensional field of the passive, 
single eye, 

(6) the bi-dimensional field of the passive, 
double eye, 

(7) the tri-dimensional field of the single 
and double moving eye or eyes, 

(8) the bi-dimensional field of the ear, or 
ears. 

Smell and taste, as well as the organic sensa- 
tions, are spaceless, though not lacking in the 
attribute of extensity. By "spaceless" is here 
meant that they cannot be developed into per- 
ceptions that will square with the readings of 
detachable sense organs. One dimension can 
be gotten easily from either the skin moving 
over a point or a point moving over the skin. 
But a square, circle or triangle outlined upon 
the skin is poorly judged to be a closed figure 
unless the stimulation is intense enough to leave 
definite after-sensations. Otherwise the first 
impression of the stimulus will give an eccen- 
tric spacial reference. A temporal threshold 

251 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

must not be exceeded here either, for otherwise, 
the after-sensation will be excentrically re- 
ferred. Local-sign, duration, after-image and 
the like, thus pass over into perceptions. A 
geometrical figure in metal, when laid on the 
skin, will likewise require a certain intensity 
of application to be judged correctly as to its 
shape. If it has sharp corners, they are likely 
to arouse pain before its sides fully arouse 
touch, in which case all the elements in the per- 
ception of its size will be derived from the vari- 
ous systems of cutaneous sensibility rather than 
from superficial (or epicritic) touch alone. A 
warmed dollar feels larger and lighter than a 
cold one, if both are laid simultaneously upon 
corresponding parts of the body, this being due 
both to the engorgement of the capillaries 
through heat, and to the numbing of the skin 
through cold, thereby making the skin itself a 
tactual stimulus. If a heavy, blunt point moves 
across the skin surface at the same rate as a 
lighter, finer one, the judgment of rate of mo- 
tion will err in point of underestimating the 
speed of the second. In all these cases of der- 
mal perception, there must be considered the 
matter of the "pressure gradient." This refers 
to the deformation of the skin by the stimulus. 
The hand immersed in mercury will respond 

252 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 
to a sumniatioii of touches only at the line of 
emergence from the liquid. Below that point 
it will function a mutual inhibition of them. 
This is due to the exceedingly unusual pressure 
of the liquid at that place as compared with the 
pressure of the air above it. Contrast is here 
the deciding factor. In cases of the pressure 
gradient, the distribution of pressures from the 
point of application becomes such that irradia- 
tion occurs, — a factor which accounts for some 
of the eccentricity of dermal local-sign, — for 
some of the outlying areas beyond the stimulus 
will be subliminally excited, and, by virtue of 
the lateral pressure of the deformed skin, the 
non-orthogonal character of the entire stimu- 
lation will be functioned erroneously in the 
judgment given. Pain, in its quick lancing 
down, and cold in its contrasting thrill, are bet- 
ter localized than those other sensations which 
have less instant contrast effects, regardless of 
latency or intensity. 

123. Dermal perception of space is also ob- 
tained by the moving of one skin area over an- 
other. All three dimensions can be thus exhib- 
ited, — the vertical, the horizontal, and the third 
dimension called depth. But this almost always 
involves tendinous and articular ingredients, 
and while the threshold of bare movement is 

253 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

low, judgments of the extent to which the legs 
or arms have moved, whether singly or in pairs, 
are usually quite inaccurate. For example, a 
slow movement seems longer than a rapid one 
of the same extent, while the judgment of a 
blindfolded subject, who determines his two 
arms to pass symmetrically through the same 
distance, errs. The movement of the limb 
mentioned, noticed and kept in focus is always 
overestimated, though the extent of successive 
movements is better judged than that of simul- 
taneous. Along with kinaesthetic sensations, 
there is usually present either coolness or 
warmth from the skin due to the fanning of the 
air by the moving member. This, however, 
often gives cues as to spacial differences in the 
resulting perception. Extents of movement, 
durations, and qualities, — that is, the local sign 
of the articular elements in toe, hip, shoulder, 
wrist and the like, together with the massive- 
ness of the fusions from the large joints, — these 
are determining elements in all cases of kinaes- 
thetic perceptions. Curious among the eccen- 
tricities of naive perceptions is the familiar 
"size-weight" illusion. If a subject is presented 
with two objects of similar shape, but of ex- 
actly the same weight, and takes them both 
simultaneously and lifts them, the smaller of 

254 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

the pair will appear heavier than the larger. 
Furthermore, the larger is not only "better pre- 
pared for" muscularly than is the smaller, but 
it gets lifted more steadily and, due to the mus- 
cular "surprise" provoked by the other weight, 
gets lifted more rapidly. Other things being 
equal, the more rapidly a lifted object ascends, 
the lighter it seems. The experiment is usually 
set to deceive, and could be called an illusory 
phenomenon only in point of the verbal report 
of the subject upon suffering the joke. Other- 
wise, it is but a case of co-conscious perception 
as functioned by movement on the basis of in- 
equality of visual responses to sizes. For the 
motor setting with which we approach such un- 
equal objects is usually derived solely from 
their space relations, and not from the in- 
tended movements giving a sub-focal, strain 
pre-sensation. There is such a thing as a yellow 
consciousness, an angry consciousness, but there 
is no such thing as a heavy consciousness: we 
function for weights only by strains. This point 
of pre-sensation, pre-perception and motor at- 
tunement will be further treated of in the sec- 
tions on "meaning." 

124. Before elaborating auditory and visual 
space perceptions, I wish to outline the sensa- 
tional elements in all perceptions. Under the 

255 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

concepts of the attribute-thing and part-whole 
relationships, sensations and perceptions are 
differentiated chiefly by the complexity and 
concatentation of their elements. Perceptions, 
being linked with motor responses of general 
orientation, in a way which sensations are not, 
illustrate the "with-for" relationship in its most 
significant aspect. The clearest consciousness 
is perceptual, not sensational or emotional, and 
the motor acts of the body are not only the sur- 
est, most maintaining, and least fatiguing, when 
the perceptual responses are dominant; but per- 
ceptions at once lead to organizations of activ- 
ity, judgments, reasonings, clear conceptions in 
a manner not ever approached by other kinds of 
responses. Now, those attributes of sensation 
which lead directly to perception are the fol- 
lowing: fusion, duration, intensity, local-sign, 
contrast, and after-image. I shall take them 
up separately. 

125. Fusion in perception. Every whole 
has properties other than those of its parts, 
taken isolatedly. There may also be more prop- 
erties of the whole than the addition of those 
of the parts would indicate to be the case. Now 
insofar as fusion typifies wholeness, a fusion 
resultant manifests the specific properties of a 
whole. A fusion resultant, furthermore, is not 

256 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

the same as a simple sensation; for a fusion 
can be broken up into several sensations, while 
a simple sensation breaks up at once into at- 
tributes: besides, the elements of a fusion still 
have position in space and time, while the at- 
tributes of sensation do not. It is possible, also, 
for the "position" of the fusion resultant not 
to coincide with that of any of the constituting 
sensations. Nevertheless, fusions give us a 
clear example of the addition of one and one 
to make but one, — as is evidenced by the two 
compass points placed on the skin within the 
dermal threshold for twoness. In such a case 
of fusion, also, we have exhibited the fact of 
the submergence of some of the properties of 
the parts under the new^ quality of the whole, or 
resultant. If, again, such a fusion be gradually 
consummated and then gradually broken up„ 
one may get a clear perception of change as 
well as of rate of change, — two factors both of 
which facilitate orientation in any recurrent 
meeting with either the elements in, or results 
of, such fusion. Lastly, identity and contrast 
may be obtained along wdth fusion, with the 
probability that each may supplement the per- 
ceptual value of the others. For instance, if 
tickling be produced first by light wool and 
later by a vibrating tuning-fork, while the sub- 

257 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ject obtains both visual and dermal contents 
from the stimulus, he will dermally sense iden- 
tities but visually sense and perceive differ- 
ences. This will automatically evoke contrast 
in the resulting consciousness and all of the 
elements here involved will make a perceptual 
pattern of larger dimensions than would other- 
wise be possible. Such an account will fail to 
satisfy the incurable introspector, — for he 
wants to know in all such cases how the object 
is re-presented in consciousness, — not what of 
the object is first of all just plain consciousness. 
But this is asking what the "mental" status of 
an object is, — an item we have long ago rele- 
gated to the vocabulary of metaphysical pro- 
fanity. 

126. Duration in perception. The fading 
out, wilting, or sudden onset and release of a 
stimulus, accompanied by whatever content or 
process is functionally related to such things, 
brings with it, or has as part of it, the corre- 
sponding consciousness in point of duration and 
its relational aspects. The duration of a content 
or process means also the passing of a threshold 
of the perception of relations. This tem- 
poral attribute of sensations welds them to- 
gether into the causal or symmetrical relations 
of perception. It is a primitive and ultimate at- 

258 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

tribute, and is to be correlated directly with the 
rise and fall of the neural releases. Duration, 
including simultaneity and succession of im- 
pulses, is a bi-dimensional field, and by virtue 
of temporal duration we are enabled both to 
sense together, and sense successively, as well 
as perceptually function the discrimination be- 
tween pairs of intensities, local-signs, durations, 
and so on. The overlapping of neural impulses 
is the physiological element operating here. 

127. Intensity in perception. The more in- 
tensive stimulations usually capture the final 
common path, and thus get soonest organized 
into perceptions. If, also, there be diff'erences 
of intensity in the conscious manifold, they will 
be functioned as a series of intensities in addi- 
tion to whatever other series the stimulations 
may exhibit. Were it not for differing levels of 
receptiveness, most objects would otherwise be 
recorded as "Blob No. 1," "Blob No. 2," etc. A 
series of psychological intensities in one mo- 
dality, however, may be contrasted with data 
from another sense field operating at the same 
time, and thus better balance and orientation 
may result. 

128. Local sign in perception. The position 
of every sensory stimulus is more or less de- 
terminable, and the resulting sensation is func- 

259 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tioned as being derived from some part of the 
spacial order; however, the Euclidian position 
and the reported position need not coincide. 
We saw in the case of touch, that when two 
compass points were placed on the skin within 
that distance known as the dermal threshold 
for twoness, that the local sign of the resulting 
sensation was either absorbed by one or the 
other of the points, or was referred to something 
like a mean position between them. Likewise, 
when only the deep sensibility is left after nerve 
section, successive, and not simultaneous double 
pressure alone remains. Now, whether local- 
sign be a quality peculiar to every direction of 
stimulation or not, there is soon derived with 
practice an increased sensitivity to location, and 
practice also improves spacial discrimination on 
that side of the body not exercised. In all cases 
of location, two senses are better than one, and 
differences of position are responded to better 
than are single positions. But, as said before, 
we are not calibrated as meter sticks are, and 
questions put to us in regard to the sensorial 
position of things have no right to be couched 
in terms of the experimenter to the disparage- 
ment of the subject. Any response is a respect- 
able datum in psychology. 

129. Contrast in perception. Togetherness, 
260 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

whether simultaneous or successive, is accom- 
panied by partially balanced neural responses, 
and this balance is part of the basis for the per- 
ception of the pattern of stimulations func- 
tioned in consciousness. We sense diti'erences 
rather than absolute magnitudes, and this fact 
has a cash value in perception. Gradual in- 
creases or decreases in intensity of the stimulus 
are not usually accompanied by equal slidings 
in the content of consciousness, but abrupt in- 
creases or decreases are the rule. The steady 
"stream of thought" is something which the 
writer, for one, knows nothing about. Instead 
of being continuous, consciousness is discon- 
tinuous, — arguments for continuity on the basis 
of anything but breath or pulse being incompre- 
hensible to him. In this connection, it is logical 
to distinguish between the perception of con- 
trast and the sensations that are contrasted to- 
gether; nevertheless, in psychology either may 
be now primary, and again derivative. 

130. After-image in perception. Structures 
are also revealed by duration and other con- 
tinuing phenomena. The after-image is such a 
functioner of structure. Both positive and neg- 
ative after-images, insofar as perception is con- 
cerned, each add just another term in the series 
of possible contents derived by the sense or- 

261 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

gan. Often in so doing they give common parts 
with the effects of other stimuli. Thus they 
relate things which might otherwise go unre- 
lated for a considerable time, and by lasting 
longer than the stimulus presentation, they af- 
ford contrast effects, whereby further bases for 
perception are established. 

131. There is thus nothing mythical in the 
sensational contributions to the elements of per- 
ception. We have specifically dealt, however, 
only with the response side; but inasmuch as 
the sensation is the object and what it will do, 
we have only to indicate the way structure is 
first functioned, — for it is always the object 
which is a structural experience as well as 
structurally experienced. Indeed, the object 
sensed and the object perceived differ in only 
two respects, — namely, the structure of the 
neural releases, and the structure of the en- 
vironment in which it is being functioned. All 
these structural relations are logical and em- 
pirical, and have none of the odor of "mental- 
ity" upon them. 

132. Now for space perception, especially as 
related to the eye and the ear. Let us first bear 
in mind the fact that the study of space with 
reference to the naive ear and eye is not a study 
of how space is made, space never having gone 

262 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

through any mill or shop, but only how space 
and spaciality are functioned. For the study of 
psychology is principally an analysis of what 
we already well know, as well as how things 
get known; and it determines the properties of 
parts in a whole whose parts are not yet fully 
determined as to their contributing elements. 
Consider the following list of sense-fields: 

Visceral and coenaesthetic sensations. 

Taste, 

Smell, 

Touch, 

Kinaesthesis, 

Hearing, 

Vision. 

As named in the above order, they represent 
not only that order in which they are the worst- 
to-best space givers, but also that order in which 
they have, with one or two exceptions, the least- 
to-most structure. Not only this, but they have 
in this order an increasing number of qualities, 
and therefore exhibit correspondingly numer- 
ous instances of variation in the combination of 
attributes leading directly to perception. 

Ear Space. 

133. The eyes converge and focus, but the 
ears do not. The tensor tympani contracts 
upon accomodation, and the tympanum func- 

263 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tions sudden intensity in the manner previous- 
ly described. But ear space is obtained by the 
relative intensity with which sounds are gotten 
by the two ears, barring one notable exception, 
— the human voice. This can be very well lo- 
calized front and back, while all other sounds 
are in need of being placed well within the lat- 
eral field of sound with reference to the coronal 
and sagittal planes of the head. The shell of 
the ear (concha) also acts as a resonator, and 
performs a localizing function. There is also 
a widespread and clearly manifest tendency 
to locate a relatively loud sound in front of, and 
a relatively weak sound behind, the head, but 
just what the zero of intensity (loudness or 
weakness) is, in such cases, has not yet been 
determined. Furthermore, the straining of the 
eyes to right or left causes a misplacement of 
the sound in that direction, and every reflex 
tendency of the head adds an element in the 
determination of space while the eyes are 
closed. Sounds full of overtones are naively 
localized nearer to us than sounds poor in over- 
tones, while the "flatter" of two sounds seems 
to be the farther away. Fusion in sounds offers 
an interesting analogue to fusion in touches. If 
two similar sounds be produced at certain dif- 
ferent positions with relation to the head, they 

264 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

will invariably be heard as one, in spite of the 
fact that the subject knows there are two of 
them. The position of the fused resultant will 
be either, (a) the actual position of one of the 
stimuli, (b) at a point between them, or (c) 
eccentrically referred to an indeterminate po- 
sition. 

134. Again, if an auditory stimulus is car- 
ried toward the head, the localization of it will 
be functioned with the same result as if, with 
the stimulus fixed, the head has been moved in 
the direction of the source of sound. It is the 
moving things of nature that give us our best 
cues of position, and ear space furnishes a field 
in which these operate. Within the internal ear 
lie the semi-circular canals, as well as two 
conjoined organs of spherical shape known as 
the saccule and utricule. The canals are set 
in the three geometrical dimensions, and are 
full of a liquid that gets impacts which develop 
wave forms in the tiny tubes of these canals 
when the head is moved. Extirpation of them 
impairs our perceptions of position; but one of 
each corresponding pairs of canals on either 
side may be removed without apparent loss of 
this function. Only when both vertical, or both 
horizontal canals, for example, are extirpated, 
will such perception be inhibited. The saccule 

265 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

and utricule have on their internal surfaces 
tiny hairs upon which lie crystals, whose func- 
tion is thought to be to exert pressure during 
sudden movements of the head or body, and 
thus to arouse stabilizing reflexes. Deaf mutes 
very frequently have defective inner organs of 
the ear, and the common inability of these per- 
sons to locate themselves in under-water swim- 
ming, as to the surface and bottom of the pool, 
is correlated with this fact. Interesting side- 
lights upon dizziness are revealed by incidents 
in connection with our modern conquest of the 
air. One of the important things that has been 
shown is to how great an extent the environ- 
ment of the aviator may be rigidly defined by 
his aeroplane, with but little reference to the 
surrounding medium. Spiral somersaults are 
soon learned without any feeling of dizziness. 
From a recent magazine comes the following 
quotation: "A naval airman when flying sea- 
ward entered a thick white cloud and wholly 
lost his sense of direction. He only realized 
that he was upside down on finding that things 
were falling out of his pockets. ... At 
length he emerged from the cloud and saw the 
sea apparently over his head, but was able to 
right his machine and continue his flight." In 
rotating the body rapidly, we produce the phe- 

266 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

nomenon known as dizziness, which might be 
classified under sensations of movement, as well 
as under perceptions of space. It is accom- 
panied by eye movements, nausea, and dis- 
placements of the viscera, which, — being less 
stable than the bones, — alter the center of grav- 
ity of the body when the}^ are disturbed. In 
this case also undoubtedly the kinaesthetic or- 
gans of the internal ear function importantly. 
Looking in a mirror whose position is suddenly 
unsteadied will also give a sense of dizziness. 
Toe-dancers obviate the inevitable dizziness in- 
cident to their rapid rotation by fixating one 
object after another before they arrive directly 
in front of it; or else, with eyes closed and di- 
rected downwards, they attain the same end. 
When one observes the eyes of a person who 
has been rapidly rotated, without any of these 
precautions being taken, he sees an involun- 
tary rotary movement of the eyes, called nystag- 
mus. This nystagmus may be lateral, (that is, 
the eyes may jerk rapidly from side to side), or 
rotary, but it is rarely vertical. During rota- 
tion, there is a tendency to fixate any stationary 
object, but it soon gets left behind, and we look 
quickly forward to fixate another stimulus. 
During this look forward there is no vision. 
After slowing up, a contrary effect is produced; 

267 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
the eyes of the subject jerk quickly back and 
slowly forward, the general effect of this being 
being to function the surrounding objects as 
rotating around him as a center. Some people 
lose their sense of orientation while watching a 
waterfall, as this is a form of flicker, while in- 
toxicants, and strange eye glasses, as well as 
disturbances in the circulation all have common 
parts in this phenomenon of mis-orientation. 
Even to pass a galvanic current through the 
ears produces dizziness, and one may have sen- 
sations of falling toward the cathode pole in 
such a case. But neither this nor the oscilla- 
tions of the eyes accompanying it occur when 
the labyrinths are removed. 

135. In all these cases of confusion, there 
are several significant things to be noted. In 
the first place, the organs of accomodation and 
adjustment act with longer latent periods than 
allow instantaneous readjustment to an envi- 
ronment whose relative positions are shattered; 
and the consciousness generated in such situa- 
tions is the situation itself pitted against the 
responses to that other environment which has 
no especially significant name, but which is 
mainly functioned by the tonic reflexes that 
react against all such disturbances. Further- 
more, while the perception of confusion may be 

268 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

a confused perception, all of our responses at 
any one time need not be confined to those ele- 
ments which are focally conscious. A confused 
environment may lie within an unconfused one, 
and part of the stabilizing influences may come 
directly from the responses to this other en- 
vironment. But at the time, these responses 
are not focally conscious, and need not have 
any content; they may be treated of entirely in 
terms of the general somatic momentum, which 
after all is but a response to whatever stability 
is present. For human beings are constant 
functions of their environment, whether they 
be manifesting sensation, perception, volition, 
belief, or judgment. And if any one wishes to 
know what "mystery" lies behind these other 
stabilizing environments, the only reply is that 
the non-mental elements which make up both 
mind and matter have other orders than those 
into which they may be and are constantly or- 
ganized as sensory data; and being non-mental 
as well as non-physical, they have no age nor 
settled occupation. 

136. Of all the modalities, sight is the one 
which figures principally in spacial perceptions. 
Not only are the combinations of sight and 
touch, sight and sound, sight and movement, 
better space givers than any such two-term com- 

269 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
bination not including sight, but also our in- 
struments of precision are usually adjustable 
sight organs rather than organs co-functioning 
with the efferent nerves of other sense fields. 
Telescopes, transits, sextants, and range-finders, 
for example, are all visual apparatus, and even 
the physical measurements employed to deter- 
mine time and intensities are calibrated into 
scales which we read with the eye rather than 
perceive by the use of the other receiving or- 
gans of sense. The domination of all other 
spaces by sight space is apparent, and we even 
employ in more than a figurative sense the ex- 
pression "seeing is believing," when we are in 
doubt as to the factual status of the something 
under suspicion. The functional dependence 
of perception upon the eye is not difficult to 
make explicit. No other single organ can re- 
ceive so many impressions and group them, 
while at the same time it adjusts itself to their 
differences, as can the eye. For three sets of 
functions are implicit in its action, — movement 
of the entire organ by rotation within its socket; 
accomodation of the lens by the ciliary reflex; 
and the color and shape responses quite inde- 
pendent of these two. The amount of space re- 
sponded to by the eye so far exceeds that of any 
other sense organ, that, if by the expression 

270 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

"higher sense" is meant the possibility of or- 
ganized and dependable perception, no modal- 
ity is in any way superior to vision. 

137. Convergence and accommodation are 
two motor responses of the eye which aid sig- 
nificantly in space perceptions. Convergence 
accompanies accomodation, and any intense 
stimulus for vision will set going automatic ro- 
tation of the eyes to bring the object directly 
in line with the visual axis, as well as adjust- 
ment of the lens to the focal distance required 
for clear vision. The two eyes converge and 
accomodate as one, and by means of producing 
convergences and accomodations under arti- 
ficial circumstances, the distances of objects 
thus seen will be functioned by the extent of 
the automaticity of these processes. Exceed- 
ingly distant objects make no apparent con- 
vergence in the eyes: the axes are practically 
parallel, as is the case with persons asleep; and 
the "far away look" of one in abstraction or in 
a condition of surplus eating is directly refer- 
able to the non-fixation of any sensory stimulus. 
Objects will appear then, in this connection, as 
far away as the sensations of reflexly excited 
accommodation and convergence function them. 
But we must also take into account the matter 
of visual distance, and what it means. When 

271 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

things are found out to be nearer or farther than 
they appeared, it cannot be called a visual il- 
lusion. Depth or distance, visually speaking, 
is as great as it appears to be; but depth or dis- 
tance in terms of intended movement to reach 
the object, is as great as it is found out to be. 
Of course, in eye-consciousness, one must con- 
sider that there are many unequal linear ex- 
tents which are functioned exactly alike, — they 
have common parts, — and these visual identities 
are just as good data as any others. Let the 
cause of the eye, and not the eye itself be the 
emptor qui caveat. What we were set to do 
on the basis of regarding these common parts as 
in one series only, is the basis for error; and 
this is a case of contradiction in the resulting 
movements, not an error of the visual content. 
The exact basis for erroneously calling this a 
"visual illusion" is the violation of the part- 
whole relation, — that is, the making of the 
whole consciousness independent of its contrib- 
uting parts and relations. 

138. The so-called retinal image, or, for our 
purposes, the extent of retinal stimulation, has 
an immediate bearing upon the functioning for 
extents and depths. According to physiological 
optics, the size of the stimulated retinal area 
is directly proportional to the size of the ob- 

272 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

ject stimulating it; and thus whatever object 
can be made to stimulate a smaller retinal area 
than it normally would in its spacial context, is 
called more distant than normally. The clear- 
ness or faintness of the stimulated retinal area 
has much to do also with the visual estimation 
of size and distance. Irradiation of light on 
neighboring retinal areas brings an inevitable 
distance effect, as well as does the stimulation 
of the retina by objects in a fog. But here 
haziness causes us to function the objects as 
much nearer for vision than they are in motor 
terms, whereas their vagueness of outline makes 
them appear farther away than one would ex- 
pect. Moreover, objects nearer than the fixa- 
tion point seem larger, and those farther away 
smaller; while if there are two objects directly 
in the line of vision, and the eye first fixates the 
farther and then the nearer of them, there will 
be apparent a doubling of the object not fixated. 
Holding a meter stick directly in the line of 
sight, and looking first at one end, then the 
other, and then at the middle, will cause all the 
blurring which any mis-focussed optical appa- 
ratus is heir to under similar circumstances. 

139. Before taking up this phenomenon of 
doubling in detail, let us consider one differ- 
ence between monocular and binocular vision 

273 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

on the phenomenal side. If a ring is suspended 
before one with its diameter in the median 
plane of the head while one eye is closed, the 
task of thrusting a pencil quickly into the aper- 
ture of the ring will be far more difficult than 
when both eyes are open. But the error is not 
so much one of direction as of the amount of 
distance at which the ring is estimated to be. 
If the ring moves, and any co-ordination be- 
tween vision and intended movement is there- 
by obtained, the trials will result in far greater 
accuracy than otherwise. Nevertheless, the de- 
termination of the amount of movement the 
ring has to make before accuracy of thrust is 
obtained, is of slight account; for there would 
be no basis on which accuracy with both eyes 
open without movement of the ring, could be 
equated with accuracy with but one eye open 
while the ring is moving. These two situations 
are prime to each other, and psychological 
primes may all be substituted for each other or 
not, just as environmental and intentional con- 
ditions determine. But so much does movement 
enter into perceptions of depth, that the eye 
must be regarded primarily as a motor mechan- 
ism whenever we wish to refer the data of 
space getting to it. For if we produce experi- 
mentally an apparent monocular visual im- 

274 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

passe, — unless it be flashed on and off instan- 
taneously to the subject, — involuntary accomo- 
dation and re-accomodation occur, since the 
eyes are almost never still, even though we in- 
trospectively judge them to be so. Again, the 
two retinae do not function singly, however in- 
dependently they may elaborate their stimula- 
tions antecedent to the full neural discharge ac- 
companying focality. So that while uniocular 
depth may be obtained, especially with move- 
ment, one must be warned against assuming 
that the closure of one eye is accompanied by 
the exclusion of unconscious binocular, accu- 
rate functioning of space. 

140. As a matter beyond dispute, however, 
depth can be obtained in too short a time to al- 
low for any eye movements, and while just how 
great a depth is therein apprehended is not quite 
clear, any depth at all would be sufficient evi- 
dence of the fact that space is not a matter of 
what some psychologists incorrectly term ex- 
perience, for spacial content is one thing, while 
the study of the functions whereby we get that 
content is quite another. Furthermore, to find 
ourselves accurately and prudentially oriented 
among our surroundings often means that mo- 
tor habits have improved upon the sensory 
content of vision to a large degree. The lowest 

275 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

levels of consciousness are devoid of content, 
but they are not on that account lacking in those 
functions out of which accurate judgments may 
still be made. To treat then of binocular space, 
we have to consider first the fact that when the 
eyes are focussed, this functioning defines the 
jBeld of vision in terms of the point of focus. 
Everything beyond and nearer than that point 
fails to arouse the same sort of definite stimu- 
lations from the eye sockets; as well as it fails 
to open such co-ordinating pathways to in- 
tended movements as does the fixation reaction, 
to which all others are subsidiary. One cannot 
converge his eyes in the dark correctly, and 
exact fixation of its source is impossible after a 
light, once shown, is obscured. If we turn out 
the electric light before retiring, not only will 
the exact position of the lighting fixture be lost 
to consciousness, but, in a strange room, all 
movements of orientation will be suddenly 
swamped out of the motor pattern except the 
vaguest remnant of our previous intention. 
"Groping in the dark" is just another way of 
saying that intended movements guaranteed in 
their integrity by the element of visual fixation 
have been geometrically decreased by the bare 
arithmetical loss of the guiding eye, in point 
both of accuracy and chain continuity. Now, 

276 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

as a usual thing, one is led to believe that the 
physiology and psychology of vision have made 
an inseparable contract. The notion of the ex- 
act correspondence between the amount of con- 
vergence of the eyes and the apparent distance 
of the object from the observer emanates from 
the very bosom of physiological optics, as well 
as the impossibility of single vision when non- 
corresponding points are being stimulated. 
Previous to that notion there was much support 
given to a derivative of the laws of optics 
known as the projection theory. This fell out 
of that opaque philosophical era in which the 
mind was considered a mirror of the objects of 
the "external" world. And yet the mind was 
in the brain, though the brain, strange to say, 
was also external! These were also the days 
when the mention of certain unctious words was 
inevitably followed by the stupefaction of the 
non-elect. Now although every observation 
may contribute to science, and while the search 
for ordinal correlations is symptomatic of one 
form of an orderly mind, yet any one who ex- 
periments upon vision and tries to ordinally 
correlate every visual phenomenon either with 
one of the laws of lenses or the laws of phys- 
iological optics exclusively, will find that in- 
stead of obeying the laws of nature, he has but 

277 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

obeyed the laws of the logic of intention. We 
do find, it is true, that objects falling on non- 
corresponding points of the retinae, — that is, 
upon points geometrically non-identical, — pro- 
duce usually double vision of the stimulus. As 
a matter of fact, however, we get too few dou- 
ble images for the theory of identical points to 
be unlimitedly applicable, and too many for the 
notion of projection to be entertained. Im- 
portant work is being done at present upon this 
very item of binocular vision, and the general 
tendency of writers is to be catholic in the use 
of conclusions. At present, also, depth or solid- 
ity is being explained by saying that it is func- 
tioned by retinal conditions which exhibit a 
half-way state between single and double vision. 
For while we never see double at the fovea, 
neither does the marksman see two targets, nor 
the microscopist two specimens, though both 
of his eyes are open. To say, furthermore, that 
the eye not at the slit of the gun nor at the eye 
piece of the microscope sees nothing, is perjury 
to the facts. 

141. For, if explanations of vision are to be 
through and through optical, or physiological, 
— in order to satisfy some a-priori theory of 
mechanism, — then, of course, at inconvenient 
places some such psychological (!) factor as 

278 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

"habitual neglect" of the disturbing fact must 
be solicited in the final reckoning. For even 
stereoscopic effects of depth persist not only 
when the eyes are converging, but even when 
they are parallel, and when they are diverging 
as well; and distances can be discriminated as 
far as twenty metres, when kinaesthetic factors 
or retinal disparity are negligible. ''Neglect of 
the extraneous elements," — by which is usually 
meant some "mental" hocus which is invoked 
to lubricate the irritating fact, — will not serve 
as an explanation, unless it be allowed to serve 
whichever side such a factor as "habitual ne- 
glect" or "convenient explanation" may prag- 
matically be called upon to support. Other- 
wise, "experience" and "habit" might become 
terms of no meaning! "Neglect" or "experi- 
ence" have nothing to do with the laws of op- 
tics; but so hard put are any and all purveyors 
of the insurmountable duality of stimulus and 
content, that the convenient explanation be- 
comes the one of greatest validity. Now the 
eye, besides being the functioner of vision, is a 
spherical body, whose optical effects are there- 
by often translations of plane surfaces into 
sphericities. Let one consider along with this 
the phenomenon of irradiation, the fact of much 
more than foveal vision being functioned nei- 

279 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ther as infra- or ultra-foveal perspective, the fact 
of some indisputable monocular depth, of some 
instantaneous depth, and many other phenom- 
ena, and he will be factually obliged not only to 
infer, but imply as well that the series of phys- 
ical phenomena, the series of physiologically- 
optical phenomena, and the series of psycholog- 
ical space phenomena are three series, each as 
empirical, each as independent, and each as 
likely to have as not to have copious common 
parts with the others. In brief, there is a re- 
lation of functional dependence rather than a 
numerically causal relation existing between 
all these terms; and only the barest, and one 
might almost say inessential, correlation exists 
between all the terms of any one series, and all 
the terms of any other. But here is the main 
point, that incompatible as all these various 
series may be, term by term, their summation 
in all functioning for space may become self- 
corrective of any discrepancies in the partial 
explanation which any one of them may afford. 
Motor adjustment, on the basis of the cumula- 
tive effects of re-fixation, accompanied either 
by the eye itself moving or the stimulus being 
moved about, has, as a total complex in the 
cross-section, such a geometrically greater ef- 
fect than the simple arithmetical summation of 

280 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

the separable data might lead one to expect, 
that the question of how we get space is quite 
subsidiary to the question of how accurate is 
the space so gotten. And this question is final- 
ly answerable by reference those ultra-ocular 
instruments of precision mentioned before, — I 
mean by reference to the ability of two con- 
structing engineers to make their separate tun- 
nels meet in the middle of a mountain, or to the 
ability of the gunner to demolish a target whose 
position is relayed to him by monoplane, tele- 
phone, and the calculus. 

142. The insufficiency of such an account of 
visual space may perhaps be condoned on the 
strength of a brief mention of certain geomet- 
rical figures which are always cited as evidence 
of the tattered character of optical impressions. 
I mean the Mueller-Lyer, the Poggendorf, the 
Zoellner diagram, and others of their kind. 
Likewise, "Mach's Book" is often cited as espe- 
cially telling evidence against the stability of 
space. One word only must suffice in our treat- 
ment of this and all similar material. The 
"illusory" character of all these figures consists 
in the questions asked of the subject who at- 
tends to them. For example, if one is asked 
which way "Mach's Book" is open, — toward one 
or away from one, — the answer is that it is 

281 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

turned in either direction, just as it appears to 
be. It is equally either, since it contains the 
perspective elements of both, — it is all common 
parts, and has no exclusive relation to one 
aspect or the other. I'll even wager that it was 
drawn with this very end in view. The Muell- 
er-Lyer figure, while depending largely upon 
the motor element in vision for its emphatic 
effect, is a figure about which only tricky ques- 
tions can be asked. "Tell which line is the 
longer," as a sample of the instructions given 
to the subject, should be replaced by "which 
figure gives the more contracted effect?" For 
the threshold of this contraction can be easily 
found by the rotation of the movable arrows 
about their axes, and the whole "illusion" de- 
pends upon the absorption of one set of local 
signs by another, — a thing we found in connec- 
tion with compass points and intertones, and 
which we are as likely to find again in still a 
different set of phenomena as well. 

143. This ends our particular treatment of 
sensations and perceptions. Be it known, how- 
ever, that some of the attributes we found in 
sensation apply also to perception. For in- 
stance, the time elapsing between the presenta- 
tion of such an object as a marlinespike and the 
comprehension of it as a splicing instrument, 

282 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

would be called the latent-period of perception. 
The latent-period ending, the threshold would 
be reached. Again, perceptions summate, as 
for example, when a commander surveys the 
intricacies of a general engagement, and decides 
upon the particular efficacy of bayonets or cav- 
alry sabres to turn the tide of affairs. We adapt 
to perceptions also. Indeed, one of the clear- 
est ways to define analytically the difference 
between sensation and perception is to enumer- 
ate the attributes which both exhibit, and to 
determine why not all of them are carried over 
into the structural content of perception. This 
is hereby submitted as a question for the stu- 
dent to answer. We now turn to motor attune- 
ment and meaning. 

144. It will be recalled that the motor end 
of the neural arc was mentioned as a very im- 
portant functioner of sensation. Indeed, unless 
the whole arc is active, the focalities of con- 
sciousness do not transpire. Although there are 
several ways in which the full neural release 
may occur, the most obvious way is to be elab- 
orated in the case of the instincts and the emo- 
tions, where the reflex excitation is practically 
total for the whole organism. Another form of 
release is the bare maintenance of the arc in a 
state of low resistance to a low current, as in 

283 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

cases of adaptation, when no obviously visible 
change in the motor aspect comes with con- 
tinued functioning. Other forms of the motor 
aspect of release are convergence and accomo- 
dation. The continued maintenance of bodily 
positions with regard to the stimulus is, like- 
wise, just as motor as was the initiation of such 
motor relations; and, likewise, just as motor as 
is the inhibition of unequilibrating tendencies 
from other motor complexes which might sup- 
plant them upon the slightest provocation. But 
by far the most significant sets of motor re- 
sponses are those, which, either following ac- 
comodation, following convergence, or follow- 
ing the inhibition of spreads and wiltings, lead 
to the further orientation of the organism in 
reference to its surroundings. It follows upon 
this that the stimuli are functioned in a pattern 
on the basis of which we may deal furtheringly 
with the pliable part of the environment. In 
such cases, also, the more closely related the 
exciting stimulus is to the chief furthering ele- 
ment in the environment, the more automatic- 
ally does the chain of reflexes run off, and the 
less focal does anything but the end effect to be 
reached, become. Now the body is an organ- 
ism, and as such is an example of parts func- 
tioning a whole. Likewise, the environment is 

284 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

at times organized into a definite whole leading 
to some general effect into which the effects of 
the separate parts, for a time, to be submerged. 
The motor adjustment to an environment then 
will be a furthering one, just to the extent that 
the cue-sensation and the resultant motor re- 
sponse are co-ordinated with the possibilities 
of the developing environment. Otherwise, less 
than the low current required in adaptation and 
habit will be developed in the responsive organ- 
ism. For habit is first based on the ease wdth 
which a response is shot off, and second, upon 
the lack of focality plus the gain in friction- 
less orientation which the completed response 
entails. With mannerisms and unconsciously 
learned responses the chapter on the emotional 
complex will have to do. From the internal 
sensations as well as from the general tonic 
reflexes of the body we gain a momentum w^hich 
is indisputably fundamental for the superstruc- 
ture of learned habits, perceptions of relation, 
and the more special extero-ceptive sensibilities. 
The motor attunement developed as we ap- 
proach maturity is always guaranteed, though 
not always directed, by the residual environ- 
ment and funded responses within the body. 
The general character of this bodily momentum 
is not introspectable, — it is physiological, and 

285 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

unconscious. The environment which the un- 
conscious responses function, being largely un- 
observable, is not what one ordinarily means 
by his special environment, for this latter is 
usually unsteady, and by virtue of its shifts in 
and out of focality, has sometimes erroneously 
been called that environment in reference to 
which one is free. "I can look or not," "I can 
close my ears to it,' "I can take it or leave it," 
are expressions not referred to the vegetative 
system, but to the focally sensorial environment 
of our organism. But whatever this may ulti- 
mately turn out to mean, one can never say that 
he is unresponsive to his surroundings, even 
though the sensorial environment is often made 
up of series which have many missing members, 
— a thing which partly accounts for the notion 
of freedom; while the perceptual content, — the 
environment of logical structure, of learning, of 
observable furtherances, and the like, — is much 
more continuous. And in this case it is often 
a matter of observation that the so-called "free- 
dom of choice" is due to the forgetting of the 
steps which lead to the present responses. 

145. Meanings are implicit in any definable 
pattern of response. In psychology, at least, 
anything means what one perceives it to he, as 
well as what one is about to do in the presence 

286 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

of it. Environmental pattern and motor pat- 
tern, — besides these two there is nothing to be 
said at the start. Meaning for logic is equiva- 
lence. When an author writes, "That is to say," 
or "I mean by this," he always gives an equiva- 
lent expression, to get his idea into those con- 
sciousnesses which may be somewhat oblique to 
his own, — his own having been satisfied by his 
first expression. Psychologically, this would be 
a case of the substitution of stimulus, and a re- 
cognition not only of the latent-period of per- 
ception in others, but also of the lack of any psy- 
chological congruence between his vocabulary 
and that of his readers. Again, when a sound 
is heard in the dead of night and some say 
"mouse," while others say "burglar," there is 
no equivalence in anything but the probability 
of either, and in the sensorial partial equiva- 
lence of both. On the other hand, when one 
says, "I mean that it shall take place," the strict- 
est psychological interpretation of this state- 
ment becomes, "focally no inhibitions are caus- 
ing my predictions to lose their pattern." But 
in either case there is motor readiness, — the 
urgency attendant upon a meaningful percep- 
tion, 

146. This brings us to what we call pre-per- 
ceptions. The learned readiness to take one ele- 

287 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ment of the stimulus for the whole, (the motor 
discharging upon any complex situation in 
terms of one of the specific elements), marks the 
so-called "intelligent" man, as distinguished 
from the imbecile. Stupidity is a complex of 
interminable latent-period and motor incoordi- 
nation. In such a case the chain reflexes lack 
automaticity, and the cue-stimulations have so 
many common parts that they fail to arouse any 
definite pattern of activity upon the environ- 
ment. This pre-perception or apperception, as 
it has been equivocally called, is not the same 
as the introspection upon what one is about 
to do. When a motor response has been nipped 
in the bud, or inhibited, and one is asked to re- 
port upon what he would have done, had not 
such interruption prevented, the report as given 
need not be taken as equivalent to what is uni- 
formly the case when no nipping occurs. For 
the report arises out of congested conscious- 
ness, — a thing quite different from freely func- 
tioned reactions. Of course, the introspection 
in such a case may be valuable in that it defines 
the introspection, for often by its means one can 
tell how unified is the personality from whom 
it proceeds. The difficulty with introspection 
in such a case is that it makes focal certain ele- 
ments which normally would never become so, 

288 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

and as such subverts the elements involved. 
That which is brewed in introspection is usually 
only the unimportant non-focal material becom- 
ing focal, plus the grammatical effluvia incident 
to the symbolization of the former contents and 
processes by means of speech. Introspection is 
not only reduplicated consciousness, but it 
manifests characteristics which the original 
consciousness did not properly have. Pre-per- 
ception is potential consciousness, but pre-per- 
ception as reported in introspection may not be 
at all the same as it might have been. And the 
way to test the validity of pre-perception is by 
check experiments in the laboratory, or by out- 
side reference to the verbosity of the subject. 

Now potential consciousness is indefinable 
except in terms of what does actually happen 
without the interruption of introspection. Can 
this be told by speech? Evidently not. Intro- 
spection may now and then get a few of the 
overtones of consciousness, but introspection is 
a reversal of the general current of its data, and 
as such, is valuable for that sort of reversed data 
and none other. I neglect and disparage the 
word "apperception" because it is a term which 
implies that we make up our perceptions out of 
tag-rag sensations by adding to them from a 
"mental" storehouse. Things are summed and 

289 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

get additional properties thereby, not out of a 
hypothetical "mental" storehouse, but by vir- 
tue of the interaction of the neural currents to 
function an interacting environment. The old 
idea of the soul being something that thinks and 
thereby adjudicates sensory content has been 
evaporated to its last whiff, and with it has gone 
every notion of dualism and duplicity, for these 
two are indeed twins. 

147. Along with pre-perception comes pre- 
sensation. This is one of the cardinal items in 
memory. When, for example, upon the mere 
mention of the name of an object we obtain sen- 
sory contents of it, we are said to remember or 
to have pre-sensations of it. This comes about 
by virtue of the fact that we have gained identi- 
cal responses to the various elements in the ob- 
ject, so that its color, shape, name, and so on, 
are all functionable by the same response. Now, 
the qualities and properties of objects have no 
more rigidly defined geographical position 
than have their names, and pre-sensation is but 
a case of obtaining part of an object in sensory 
content from the motor response to that which 
for us is the "open sesame" to such content. 

148. With a brief consideration of the na- 
ture of speech, this long chapter must close. So 
far as evidences are to be trusted, speech can 

290 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

be traced evolutionally to cries of danger, coo- 
ings and purrings in the mating season, wait- 
ings, cacchinations and "burblings.*' Speech 
arose apparently from the needs of communica- 
tion, but seems also to be a derivative of self- 
amusement as well. From the first wild cries of 
savage life, — whether from anger, fear, affec- 
tion or other situations, — we have derived the 
potent elements of speech, these, later on, being 
added to out of the need of orientation to a 
more complex and tranquiller environment. 
Part of language is onomatopoetic, that is, the 
words are direct imitations of the sounds of 
the things referred to. The rest is quite arbi- 
trary and conventional. The vowel element in 
language appears to be more directly related 
to the primitive order of things than does the 
consonantal element; for in every situation in 
which language is used forcibly and emotional- 
ly, the pitch element takes precedence over all 
else, and with vowels alone these nuances of 
pitch are functionable. 

149. Language is also geographical rather 
than hereditary. A child of Chinese parents, 
brought up from the beginning in the midst of 
people of a different nationality, will speak only 
the language of its foster parents. This is not 
accounted for by the shape of the mouth cavity, 

291 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

even though the palatal arch of different peoples 
is of different height and form ; but it is due to 
the extreme flexibility of the movable parts of 
the vocal apparatus. These are the tongue, the 
lips, the lower jaw, and the muscles of the 
throat. The extremely important socially or- 
ganizing part language has played in his- 
tory is attested both by the social amalgamation 
of races having a common language, and the 
political unions of people of a common tongue. 
But, over against this fact is the anciently re- 
ported historical event of a conquering people 
making the language of the conquered the po- 
lite language of their court. In these cases, 
however, the absorption of culture has gone 
hand in hand with the passion for knowing the 
language in which such culture was developed. 

150. Language is also a reaction. To men- 
tion the name of something seen, heard or han- 
dled, is to deal with it twice; and such dealing 
involves different elements of consciousness, 
and consequently differing effects. Further- 
more, the voice, by virtue of its being produced 
in the head, has an advantage over other reac- 
tions in several ways. In the first place, the re- 
action to auditory stimuli is quicker than to al- 
most any other kind. Furthermore, the domi- 
nance which the head plays in personality, as 

292 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

well as the fact that the face is far and away 
the focus of all social intercourse, makes the 
language of a person his piece de resistance in 
a majority of social matters. When one con- 
siders how^ largely information comes by way 
of words, the place that words have in human 
affairs seems clearly the chief est. Language, as 
a reaction, is thus a doubling of responses to the 
situations in which it is used. Very little of it 
is absolutely necessary, for most discussions end 
with the definitions of the terms first employed, 
and concerning which so many misunderstood 
statements were made. For words, as symbols, 
are not bound to follow the orders of the things 
isymbolized, and as a result, evaporation of 
meaning frequently occurs. But it is undeniable 
that relations and functions could not have been 
mutually considered without their aid. 

151. The order in which a child learns a 
language is curious. Contrary to the report of 
fond parents, the imitation by a child of the 
sounds and mouth movements of its parents is 
not flattering to the famous intelligence of the 
human race. The child responds to the stimuli 
of its teacher by the best way it can, but hard 
consonants, such as 'k,' 'f,' 't,' and the like are 
imitated by the use of their softer forms, 'g,' 
*v,' and 'd.' Furthermore, it learns class names 

293 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

or general terms, before it learns words of se- 
lective discrimination. It speaks of itself in 
the third person before it uses the pronoun I, 
for to all intents and purposes, it is thoroughly 
realistic in its absorption of all data. 

152. Nevertheless, the importance of lan- 
guage does not lie in the factors of its origin. 
Language, as a quotidian commodity, gets used 
in certain ways not to be explained by reference 
to its source. Words slip their moorings and 
exhibit common parts whose existence was little 
suspected beforehand; besides, the perception 
of new relations in things does not always go 
with the invention of a new word, — instead, we 
put together the old ones and make them do 
a little longer. In fact, all the new words are 
either derived from dead .languages, or are 
blurted out unexpectedly in slang and banter. 
These developments are not introspectable 
either. We speak by momentum, and mostly 
out of the co-conscious, when speaking in our 
normal speed and confidence. In this point, 
language is exceptionally typical of all unhin- 
dered consciousness: to function speech and 
then to recall it is the same sort of manifesta- 
tion as seeing, hearing and the like, and then 
introspecting upon it. The alterations that oc- 
cur to us in point of what we would have better 

294 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

said, is the same sort of consciousness as the 
introspective consciousness. For neither is 
speech ordinally correlated with the chrono- 
genetic order of our ideas, nor is it the same 
as later corrections of it would indicate to have 
been our exact meaning. It has, however, com- 
mon parts with both. The later correction indi- 
cates logical determinations, while its lack of 
correspondence with the play of ideas illustrates 
that things can get into another than the first or- 
der of cross-sectioning. 

153. Now an idea is either an attribute of 
a thing, a part of a whole, the pattern of a 
thing or a part, or the terminus of such a pat- 
tern, functionally construed, and so on. Ideas 
are anything being functioned by a nervous sys- 
tem. Functioning is the same here as knowing, 
and the only reason we distinguish between 
things not yet known and things known at the 
present time, is because the stages of their being 
first functioned, spoken of, and logically or- 
dered, reveal in this order relations which 
through summation and fusion have been over- 
looked. We use the term idea also to indicate 
usually that some such development is in pro- 
gress, rather than that bare noticing is all that 
is being done. The language reaction helps sig- 
nificantly here, for by means of it we are en- 

295 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

abled to select more elements for retention than 
otherwise, and to respond specifically to things 
to which speechless animals cannot be discov- 
ered to be at all tropistic. Consequently, the 
more accurately language is used, the more 
things can be enumerated, the more patterns and 
relations can be specified and filed away, and 
the more comparing of ideas can be accom- 
plished. Following this, the business of argu- 
ment reorders the data and reveals coinci- 
dences and contradictions. We thus obtain 
considerable positive information by the inter- 
play of language, quite apart from the phys- 
ical presence of the data to which it refers. It 
is due to the fact that language, apart from the 
things, may reveal relations not before noticed 
in the things themselves, that we have devel- 
oped the notion of ideas of things. For ideas, 
in that they are attributes of, parts of, plans of, 
and the like, imply on this account no duality 
between thought and thing. Insofar as they are 
turned into words, — auditory symbols, — they 
seem on this account to necessitate a cleft be- 
tween matters of another sense than that of 
sound, as, for instance, when we mention tastes 
and sights, and then, by momentum and pre- 
ponderance, to cover the whole of consciousness 
with this sort of debilitating predicate. Unless 

296 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

"consciousness o/"" means that there are several 
orders in the cross-section into which things can 
get, it has no meaning; for besides this and se- 
lective response, nothing is fundamental upon 
which it can be based. 

154. The parts of speech, actually disre- 
garded except in grammars, are significant for 
this treatment. Nouns are language-equiva- 
lents of things, principally, as well as of parts, 
and frequently of orders and patterns. But or- 
ders are equivalent to verbs whenever there is 
functional significance in them. Also, genetic- 
ally, nouns refer to sensation masses, while 
verbs refer to motor intention. Attributes of 
"things" are primarily adjectives, while the 
functional elements of "wholes" and "things" 
are adverbial. The noun is thus either made 
of adjectives, or made of verbs and other parts 
of speech. Relations are expressed by the use of 
prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs, while sud- 
den inhibitions are functioned by the interjec- 
tions. Of all the parts of speech, the personal 
pronoun is the latest in development. Its mer- 
curial character is a matter of even common 
notice, for besides referring to the cross-section 
equivocall}^ for different spaces of time, it refers 
either to a very insignificant part of conscious- 
ness one moment, or to the dominant motive at 

297 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

another. The intentional suppression of ideas, 
commonly called lying, is thus made exceedingly 
easy, for the pronoun I is a shifting center of 
reference at best, and all that is said about it 
must be said in terms of the elements contrib- 
uting to it as a center. Being guaranteed by its 
periphery, and not being something subtle and 
within, the pronoun I and what it means must 
always be omitted when the accuracy and truth 
of a matter is at stake. The reader is at liberty 
to indulge in all the implications in the above 
statements. 

155. Language when printed, as in this pres- 
ent form, is to be distinguished from the utter- 
ances of steady speech. For if one wishes to 
be read, he must seek to present his words in 
such a form that as many common parts will be 
present as there are persons for whom the ut- 
terances are to be stimuli. And while conces- 
sions are always made, they are not to be 
thought of as concessions which betray the au- 
thor of a book into compromises. To be able 
to get a hearing on account of using motor 
terms, well-chosen illustrations, and the like, is 
not the same as sneaking up behind a person 
and making him consent before he is aware of 
what the drift of the matter is. Seldom is the 
flow of any person's ideas good enough to speak 

298 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

or print without castigation and reordering, 
neither is any hard and fast plan in composition 
ever strictly adhered to. Likewise, in speech 
and writing we respond to the environment of 
the audience and the environment of the sub- 
ject matter, and seek to find and express com- 
mon parts in both environments, so that as 
many as we wish to stimulate may be shown the 
object, and have their threshold lowered by 
removing the inhibiting inessentials. In the plan 
of a book, however, there need be no conces- 
sions. The logical order of presentation is not 
either linguistic nor individual. 

156. Sensation and perception in the con- 
scious cross-section are thus seen to be items 
whose structural differences are chiefest. We 
shall now turn to another set of responses in 
which we shall not find structure central, but 
rather disorganization, due to continual inhibi- 
tion, fusion and confusion. I refer to the emo- 
tions ana the instincts. To a large degree, also, 
we shall have to consider consciousness lateral- 
ly and developmentally in order to understand 
the status of any emotion in the cross-section. As 
it is, moreover, this book is but an outline, and 
sketches, rather than fills in, the patterns it em- 
ploys in passing. But it makes no attempt to 
explain away anything that is, unless, per- 

299 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

chance, it be certain beliefs in non-existent 
things, and this is not only within its province 
to do, but also its particular business not to 
leave undone. 

Bibliography 

I. General. 

Holt, E. B., "The Concept of Consciousness," 
especially Chapter XI, "Sensation and Percep- 
tion in the Conscious Cross-Section," and Chap- 
ter XV, "The Emancipation of Physiology from 
Philosophy." 

Sherrington, C. S., "The Integrative Action 
of the Nervous System," Lectures I to VIL 

II. Touch. 

Rivers, W. H. R., and Head, Henry, "A Hu- 
man Experiment in Nerve Division," in 
"Brain," November, 1908. 

Titchener, E. B., "A Text-Book of Psychol- 
ogy," especially pp. 143-159. 

Myers, C. S., "A Text-Book of Experimental 
Psychology," Chapters II and XVII. 

III. Smell and Taste. 
Titchener, E. B., op. cit. pp. 114-141. 
Myers, C. S., op. cit. Chapter VIII. 

IV. Kinaesthetic Senses. 
Titchener, E. B., op. cit. pp. 160-182. 
Myers, C. S., op. cit. Chapters V and XVI. 
300 



THE SENSITIVE AND PERCEPTIVE ORGANS 

V. Hearing. 
Titchener, E. B., op. cit. pp. 93-112. 
Myers, C. S., op. cit. Chapters III and IV. 
Mach, E., op. cit. "Sensations of Tone." 

VI. Vision. 
Titchener, E. B., op. cit. pp. 59-92. 
Myers, C. S., Chapters VI and VII. 

VII. Space Perceptions. 
Titchener, E. B., op. cit. pp. 303-373. 
Myers, C. S., op. cit. Chapters XVIII to XXIII. 
Pierce, A. H., "Studies in Auditory and Vis- 
ual Space Perception." 

James, W., "Psychology, Briefer Course," 
Chapters XV, XVII, XX and XXI. 
Mach, E., op. cit. pp. 41-118. 
Holt, E. B., "The Place of Illusory Experience 
in a Realistic World," in the "New Realism." 



301 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

1. This chapter will consider emotions, in- 
stincts, and their derivatives. Strictly defined, 
both instincts and emotions are motor responses 
to disordered situations. Their stimuli are ob- 
jects consisting of series, many of whose terms 
are missing. Thus mal-adjustment of the or- 
ganism, and a disordered object are the func- 
tional and content sides of emotions and in- 
stincts. 

2. Responses define environments, and thus 
the emotional reaction may be functioned by 
one organism in a situation which arouses no 
such reaction in another organism. On the oth- 
er hand, a disorderly environment may be 
flanked on all sides by an orderly one, and so 
arouse various types of orderly or disorderly 
reactions on the part of organisms confronting 
it, with the result that the ensuing motor dis- 
charges, and not the nameable sensory content, 
must often be taken as the criteria of "what the 
organism is doing." Environments alter and 
organisms change, and the steps by which these 
alterations and changes occur need not be or- 
dinally correlated. So that the mal-adjustment 

302 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

of the organism to the situation is one, but not 
the only disturbing factor in emotional and in- 
stinctive action. Nevertheless, the usual effect 
of such mal-adjustment is cumulative, — it in- 
creases the disorder. The fusion we met with in 
sensation is antityped here in confusion, attend- 
ed by the instant arousal of general skeletal re- 
action and glandular secretion, usually resulting 
in entire translation of the whole body through 
space. Instinct is as sudden as reflex, and emo- 
tion as positionless as feeling-tone, and both in- 
stincts and emotions lack that element in per- 
ception known as pattern. They both arise in 
situations we are unable to grasp significantly, 
and consist of the suddenest and strongest out- 
goings of energy of which we are capable. They 
follow a complete chopping off of former focal 
consciousness and, instead of leading to further 
activities of profitable orientation, lead, unless 
brought to a close by exhaustion or mutual in- 
hibition, to a situation of tatterdemalion con- 
sciousness. 

3. The term "emotional complex" is used to 
indicate that these reactions usually keep 
crowding, impelling, or inhibiting each other. 
Furthermore, they often get insufficiently shot- 
off, and as a result become suppressed, — the un- 
shot residue smouldering away as an uncon- 

303 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

scious readiness of neural response. The un- 
conscious has no content, but it constituted sole- 
ly of functions, and it is this condition which 
renders obscure the causes of the breaking loose 
of smothered emotions. When a form of con- 
sciousness has no content, it cannot be satis- 
factorily described by the use of nouns. Verbs 
and adverbs are alone to be used. This is even 
witnessed by the fact of the current terms for 
the emotions and instincts: fear, flight, pugnac- 
ity, wonder, — such terms are all basically 
verbs, and only made over into nouns to satisfy 
the pragmatic urgencies of speech. There is 
no object, fear; there are only persons fearing: 
nothing is flight; there are only legs animatedly 
decreasing the parallactic angle in the eyes of 
the observer. This is not to be taken, however, 
to mean that fears and anxieties, for example, 
are groundless. It means nothing of the sort. 
But in every case of emotion or instinct, one is 
functioning a content less definable than one 
finds to be the case with sensation or percep- 
tion. And just as one has a red sensation or a 
logical perception, so in the case of these disor- 
dered responses now being considered, one has 
a fearful or a pugnacious consciousness, and 
this consciousness always has an object. 

4. Emotions and instincts, then, are the 
304 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

names chiefly applied to the functional aspect 
of disorderly consciousness. The content of 
such consciousness may be composed of any ob- 
jects whatsoever. Thus we may be afraid of 
a green, a black, a tall, a hollow, or a scurrying 
object, each of which are yet green, black, or 
tall, etc., exclusive of their emotional status. We 
are emotional or instinctive toward anything 
at all. And it is on account of the lack of spe- 
cific arousers of these mal-adjustments that we 
have no terms which specifically differentiate 
the environment into special contents for this 
and that emotion or instinct. Our strictest defi- 
nition in this case will therefore concern the 
neural discharges incident to their appearance. 
Two main points are profitably noted here. The 
first of these is the phenomenon of irradiation of 
the generating impulse which arouses centers of 
functionation not normally stimulated by the 
object of emotion or instinct when it is in an- 
other environment. The second point is what 
is called the auto-catalytic character of neural 
release. The first of these, — irradiation, — is not 
exclusively a phenomenon of the neurology of 
instincts and emotions. We spoke of it in the 
first few pages of the last chapter as significant 
even for the simpler responses. Synaesthesia 
has also been defined as correlated with it. Like- 

305 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

wise, pre-perception and pre-sensation are ir- 
radiation phenomena as well. What then, shall 
we say is idiomatic in the irradiation aspect of 
the mal-adjustment phenomena? Why, this: 
that the irradiation is of such a type as to 
arouse non-perceptual (i. e., non-stabilizing) re- 
flexes of the chain type. Thus it is that the as- 
pect of the total situation confronting the or- 
ganism is inseparable from a full account of 
the responses generating the cross-section. 

5. Now for the second, — the auto-catalytic 
character of the neural releases. Auto-cataly- 
sis occurs when one of the products of a reac- 
tion acts as a catalyser, catalysers being those 
things (substances) which hasten reactions by 
their mere presence, without entering into the 
formula themselves. The friction of the match 
sets free the chemical energy of the powder in 
the magazine, but the friction is not an element 
in the formula. Again, the decomposition of 
hydrogen peroxide by platinum black is a case 
of catalytic action. From the best evidence we 
have today, it is safe to assert that neuronic re- 
lease is a type of catalytic action, especially 
in the matter of the establishment of settled dis- 
positions in the organism. For upon the very 
first functioning of a nerve, the nerve path be- 
comes sensitized, the threshold lowered, and 

306 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

further stimulation rendered easier. Indeed, 
this fact might be said to be the neural basis 
of logical classification, and we might also add 
that the reception or rejection by the various 
organs of the body of nutriment and sensory 
contents is exactly what choice in its lowest 
terms means. The sensitization of the neural 
paths is indeed the formation of an asymmetric- 
al series. To return to auto-catalysis, the re- 
lease of reflex energy in the nerve cells is ac- 
companied by the accumulation of deposits that 
unite to form a veritable storage cell, "which is 
capable, under appropriate conditions, of being 
discharged and [thereby] restoring the same 
specific current by which it was produced." All 
the neural responses tend, indeed, to become of 
this general character, — that is, auto-catalysed, 
— but some paths, being traversed oftener, and 
more vigorously than others, (while at the same 
time producing vivid irradiation among their 
neighbors), get a momentum as well as a prom- 
inence in consciousness which the others do not 
have. Attention is just a clear pathway of per- 
ceptual neural response, or release, and is a 
derivative of acuity, threshold, interest, and 
other furthering ingredients. Between selective 
attention and restricted neural momentum 



307 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

there is no one so wise as to be able to draw 
even a hair-sized line. 

6. Neural momentum is also the dominant 
element in habit. Habit, unlike emotion, is us- 
ually unintrospectable. Unlike emotion again, 
it has a definite pattern, and serves, or can be 
made to serve some other set of responses than 
its own. Considering haDit in general, it is nei- 
ther useful nor useless; but considering it from 
the standpoint of psychology, it is the adjust- 
ment of the organism to some constant feature 
in its environment with about the least friction 
possible. Contrariwise, emotions arise from 
mal-adjustments to the environment, and in 
their continuance lead to worse and worse ad- 
justment, for only by exhausting the organism, 
or by sudden changes of focality do they bring 
about any possibility of readjustment on an 
equable basis. Curiously enough, there is a 
lack of correspondence between neural momen- 
tums and the speech reaction they arouse. Neu- 
rally construea, greatest ease of function comes 
when the wonted impulses are traversing the 
paths; our statements, however, very often as- 
sert that we prefer a complete change of activ- 
ity. At the bottom of this lies the emotional 
complex, and the presence of emotions is usual- 



308 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

ly indicative of some disorder in neural con- 
tinuity. 

7. Now the disordered environment men- 
tioned above is but one of the environments en- 
veloping the organism. When General Wood 
purified Havana, and by so doing cut down the 
death rate prodigiously, he was not responding 
to the disease-making environment so much as 
he was responding to the scientifically prophy- 
lactic environment of bacteriological laborato- 
ries. Havana was but a perplexing term in his 
entire environment for which some reagent w^as 
to be supplied in order to neutralize it. The 
needs of Havana and the visible condition of 
that city were two terms prime to each other; 
but by responses to a third element, having 
chemical common parts with both, he was able 
to make the Cuban city a member of a series 
of other cities, a series defined by its high posi- 
tion relative to vital statistics. On the other 
hand, the Havanese had been responding solely 
to the disorder. Now, to perceive nothing but 
a disordered environment is not to perceive in 
the strictest sense at all; but to perceive a dis- 
order in the midst of a larger order is virtually 
to function the discrepancy betw^een them. 
Thereafter the motor readjustment of the dis- 
crepancy will take place just as fast and just 

309 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

as far as there are common parts between them, 
and as fast and as far also as there is unification 
among the perceptions and impulses of the re- 
adjustor. There are disordered minds in the 
presence of what to others appears order and 
positive pattern, but these minds are still func- 
tioning the residues of unshot impulses, — sup- 
pressions for which there has been no utilized 
outlet. In many such cases, the environment is 
well said to be within the body. It is here also 
that the doctrine of the soft soul had its source. 
8. I take particular umbrage at the con- 
ventional treatment of instincts. As in many 
another case, obscurity of source has been made 
the basis of the tenacity of belief. For the in- 
stincts are generally treated as unlearned, sud- 
den tendencies to action; race habits, "designed 
to promote the welfare of the race," and they 
are furthermore said to be "uncontrolled by in- 
telligence." Volume after volume has been 
written on this subject of instinct, and the gen- 
eral treatment indicates that bibliography plays 
a larger role than does observation and clear 
insight. Much obscurity results from this meth- 
od of procedure, for the writers who employ it 
have their eyes only on the organism, and not 
on "what the organism is doing" in the midst of 
its environment. The insufficiency of such treat- 

310 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

ment will at once appear if we consider any- 
thing more than the organism. Sensations are 
objects and perceptions are objects, and like- 
wise emotions and instincts cannot be severed 
from their exciting stimuli and remain in the 
system of things known as the psychological 
order. The statement that instincts are un- 
learned does not signalize them as unique 
among the events of the cross-section. In the 
first place, none of the tropisms are premeditat- 
ed, sedulously tried out, and stamped with the 
hall-mark before they become settled disposi- 
tions. Secondly, suddenness cannot be their 
distinguishing mark, for short latency is applic- 
able to more of the responses than they. 
And that all the individual members of a 
race do this or that is more indicative of 
gregariousness than of anything subtly orig- 
inal. Instinctive action only appears sud- 
den because of the direniption in percept- 
ual consciousness that goes with it, and 
instinctive actions are racial only in so far as 
the predicaments of the individuals of a race 
are identical. A race is a constant function of 
its environment, a derivative of circumstances, 
and it is the environment that shapes it. The 
ubiquity of instincts is no more special than 
the ubiquity of ears or eyelids. The instincts 

311 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

are said to be "designed to promote the welfare 
of the race," — an expression which is supposed 
to possess splendid oratorical possibilities, — but 
which upon analysis turns out to have no mean- 
ing. For instinctive actions, arising from dis- 
ordered environments, lead to nothing stable 
until they are superseded by clear perceptions, 
the latter not being in any necessary way pre- 
ceded by disorderly functioning. Furthermore, 
self-preservation is said to be the kernel of 
every instinct. But upon examination it will 
appear that this means bodily preservation, not 
preservation of the self in its developed condi- 
tion, and so we have to narrow the concept 
"self" in order to satisfy such a definition. 

9. I use the word instinct, then, not because 
there is any internal origin for it save mal-ad- 
justment to the situation met with, neither be- 
cause it could not be superseded by a more em- 
pirical expression, but merely in order to show 
that a realistic psychology is not obliged to leave 
anything out of its account of mind. The im- 
possibility of self-observing the instinctive reac- 
tions, and the general loss of focal mind which 
they entail have been the roots of the notion 
that some special, internal readinesses were bas- 
ic in each individual. There are response pos- 
sibilities in each individual, but to call these by 

312 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

a name that implies a stage all set ready for the 
curtain to rise is as reasonahle as saying that 
ordnance is cast with the ammunition inside of 
it. 

10. The truth of the opening thesis of this 
chapter and its consequent development is wit- 
nessed by certain modern cataloguing and ex- 
planation of what are still called the "original 
tendencies." I refer to the work of James and 
Thorndyke, whose lists of "instincts" are so 
broad as to be subversive of the general idea 
underlying their construction. James' account 
may be found in his "Principles of Psycholog>%" 
Vol. II., Chapter XXIV., while Thorndyke's is 
given in his "Educational Psychology," Vol. i. 
Now the exact aitticulty in these treatments is 
that when they were written, the Ego-complex 
was not so much as even heard of, — at least not 
assimilated by the writers of these treatises. 
The infant had been regarded as "trailing 
clouds of glory" for about five years and three 
months, and then as suddenly becoming sheared 
of his nimbus and mortgaged as are the rest of 
us with inhibitions and a tough environment. 
But the Ego-complex, or the evolution of per- 
sonality, has been traced quite a w^ays into the 
nimbus, and psychology now includes the study 
of cradles and cognate apparatus. With this 

313 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

change, moreover, there has come the recogni- 
tion of the futility of regarding the so-called "in- 
stincts" as universals, or unlearned tendencies 
at all, and we are slowly coming to recognize 
that the environment begins to be specijQcally 
functioned with the first breath, and not after 
an indeterminate and subtle interval. On the 
basis of this, then, I make bold to define the in- 
stincts and emotions as mal-adjustments, and 
to select from the list of generally given original 
tendencies those which fall rightly under this 
category. The boldness of the venture is appre- 
ciated, and so finality of conviction rests upon 
its accustomed supports. 

11. The most modern treatment of instincts 
and emotions appears in McDougall's "Social 
Psychology," and I shall quote his list in the 
order in which the terms follow the greatest-to- 
least condition of mal-adjustment of the organ- 
ism to its environment. As follows: 
Instinct. Emotion. 

Flight Fear 

Pugnacity Anger 

Repulsion Disgust 

Curiosity Wonder 

Self Display Positive Self-feeling 

Self Abasement Negative Self -feeling 

Parental Instinct Tender Emotion 

314 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

Reproduction No one specific 

emotionality 
Gregariousness *Fear of solitude 

Acquisition * Various self-feelings 

and jealousies 

(The terms marked (*) are not found in Mc- 
Dougall.) 

The instincts and emotions appear usually 
together, the former being detected by the 
movements of the skeleton; the latter, by the 
amount of vascular disturbance summing into 
confusion and glandular secretion. Further- 
more, Sympathy, Suggestion and Imitation are 
enumerated, as well as Play. There is also a 
list of complexes of emotions both involving 
and not involving the existence of sentiments, 
these latter being an organized system of emo- 
tions about some object. 

12. Let it now be understood, however, that 
these various manifestations enumerated in the 
above table are capable of many degrees of in- 
tensity, and when they lose their edge, are not 
classifiable among the seriously disturbing mal- 
adjustments. Particularly note the instinct of 
curiosity. When this appears alone, as it may, 
without wonder, it is often linked with interest 
and attention in such a way as to lose its non- 
perceptual character. Gregariousness, when 

315 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

adapted, may also become a matter of very lit- 
tle disturbance, if the environment of other hu- 
man beings is quiescent and in order. Similar- 
ly, acquisition may become bare thrift, and as 
such be pacific in its motivation. The others, 
however, are not so readily soothed into fur- 
therances, as a little observation will readily 
show. This, however, as a last word here; that 
when the instinct and its attendant emotion oc- 
cur together, they are more likely to De disor- 
derly responses than otherwise, and some of 
these pairs of responses cannot be adapted nor 
made subservient to dominant, furthering pur- 
poses. 

13. Somewhat in detail, then, let us consid- 
er the above pairs of responses together. One 
cannot always use self-observation as a basis 
for studying them, for accurate self-observa- 
tion is only attained by considerable study; and 
to ask some one how he feels when he is afraid 
is to ask but for summation and fusion, rather 
than for a detailed analysis of the facts. Flight- 
fear occurs as early as any of the complexes of 
the list, and much has been written on it that 
is well worth reading. James' account in his 
"Principles of Psychology," Darwin's "The Ex- 
pression of the Emotions in Man and the Ani- 
mals," are typical of the best in this line that is 

316 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

extant. Perhaps no other emotional complex 
than flight-fear involves such a shattering of fo- 
cal continuities in consciousness. The result of it 
is a general super-violent efferent discharge, 
resulting in either paralysis, or in the swift pro- 
jection of the whole body by running as far 
from the stimulus as possible. But the self-pro- 
tective character of this is only on the assump- 
tion that the deep sea and the devil are both in 
front of one, and that to run in the opposite 
direction is to obtain sanctuary. The running 
awa3% of course, is no guarantee of the percep- 
tion of safety at the terminus of flight, but the 
general utility of it lies in a fifty-fifty chance 
of stoppmg somewhere this side of the devil. 
Children are not afraid of everything strange, 
but principally of noises and situations intend- 
ed to upset them. Of lightning they are often 
unaccountably afraid; but of thunder, and of 
dark closets and bugaboos only in proportion as 
their parents threaten them by voice or atti- 
tude before introducing them to the stimulus. 
The parent is as much a part of the child's 
environment as are the furniture and milk bot- 
tles, and the part the parents play is too fre- 
quently and in ignorance excluded from an ac- 
count of the child's reaction to the stimulus. 
Besides, I have been told by military men with 

317 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
medals that much of the rashness of uravery is 
plain ordinary fear, — the soldier being in a pre- 
Qicament, and one thing to him about as good 
as another. Now, by virtue of ideas having 
common parts with things, and by virtue of the 
fact that wholes can be vicariously functioned 
for by their parts, the emotions can be aroused 
by the presentation of any part of the original- 
ly exciting stimulus, provided it is bolstered up 
by effective helps. Most of our functioning 
anyway is due to the serial focality of the barest 
common parts. 

14. The pugnacity-anger complex arises 
clearly in situations which are too much for us 
to manage, and starts, at least, a series of events 
whose other end is often the annihilation or hu- 
miliation of the object or person confronting 
us. Many authors regard the distortion of the 
lips during anger as a remnant of the animal 
habit of frightening one's prey by the sight of 
the teeth about to bite. At any rate, pugnacity 
differs from flight in the direction of bodily 
translation, and in anger we are conscious of 
our bodies as larger than we are in fear. P)ro- 
fessor Cannon has done significant experiment- 
ation upon both of these complexes in point of 
their physiological concomitants. In the first 
place, he finds the peaceful tabby cat of a bet- 

318 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

ter digestion than her cantankerous mate, as 
evidenced by the fact that "fear and anger. . . . 
are attended. . . .by cessation of the contractions 
of the stomach and intestines." Furthermore, 
the disturbances of digestion which outlast emo- 
tional excitement, (after-image), are correlated 
with the action of the ductless glands which se- 
crete adrenalin, a substance which, when cir- 
culated in the blood, causes glycosuria and oth- 
er significant disorders. "It seems to act as an 
antidote to muscular fatigue, and renders more 
rapid the coagulation of blood." Both of these 
concern the pugnacity-anger complex, as well 
as that of flight-fear; for the angry or fearful 
person often performs acts which seem fully 
beyond his normal strength. Likewise, our dis- 
regard of wounds and their sudden healing in 
many cases of violent emotion are accounted 
for. (See "Recent Studies of Bodily Effects of 
Fear, Rage and Pain" by W. B. Cannon, Jour. 
Phil., Psych., and Sci. Meth., March 12, 1914.) 

15. Repulsion and disgust are more chem- 
ical than anything else. Certain bitter tastes 
and nauseating smells are both noxious and 
originally annoying. The sense environment in 
which they figure is out of balance, and mal-ad- 
justment at once supervenes. The first func- 
tioning to this sort of an environment is strictly 

319 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

chemical in its character; later on, by analogy, 
these responses can be obtained in connection 
with a set of stimuli which are not primarily 
chemical at all. Sneers, scorns, and loathing, 
which we direct at persons rather than at chem- 
icals, are responses to disordered situations 
made on the basis of verbal common parts. Of 
course there are the unwashed and unscented 
to whom we respond chemically, but for a book 
to be loathsome, an analogical situation must 
supersede. Certain very expensive books are 
printed on a most ill-smelling paper, and yet the 
response is to the printing and other beauty 
about the book, — the publisher having betted 
on the long latent-period of the odor, and the 
inhibitory properties of the literature. 

16. The curiosity-wonder complex is less 
disturbing than the two previously mentioned, 
and is the basis of the questions what, how, and 
why. But science only begins in wondering 
why; it ends in finding out. And after this is 
done, no mal-adjustment is present. Wonder 
as an element in philosophy is of the same 
character, and only mystics keep on wondering 
after they have gotten under the top crust of 
things. To say that the instincts are the springs 
of human action is but to speak half of the 
truth. They are not the regulators of human 

320 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

action, for these are perceptions instead. The 
curiosity-wonder complex difi'ers from the two 
others thus far discussed in that it involves 
sensoi-y elements rather than motor, and so 
does not function the shearing off of focality 
as is the case with the more vigorous complexes. 
But that the object wondered at is in a series 
too prime for orientation, none will be able to 
deny. 

17. Self-display and self-abasement, with 
their attendant emotions of positive and nega- 
tive self-feelings, are responses to social dis- 
turbances of an intricate character. They are 
inevitably related to shyness, bashfulness, mod- 
esty, vanity and other so-called psychological 
simples, involving certain sexual elements of 
which some mention must be made. Exhibition 
is a cardinal feature of the mating season of all 
creatures, and displays and abasements are used 
to increase mutual desire. When the exhibition 
complex outlasts the specific incident in which 
it arose, or becomes suppressed, as is often the 
case, it may crop out in very unusual situations. 
Thus the blushing reflex and the "sidelong 
glance" are suppressions being partly released. 
This is not to say that manifestation of an im- 
pulse goes necessarily with focality of the 
knowledge of its origin, for in regard to most of 

321 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

our nature we are naively ignorant. The old 
Socratic maxim "know thyself" has recently 
been inverted into "knowing oneself is a func- 
tion of knowing others." Thus an item in con- 
sciousness of a sexual origin may not be accom- 
panied by the focality of the desire for repro- 
ductive relations with another of the species, 
although we may be able to show that normally 
such would be the case were no inhibiting per- 
ceptions present. The reproductive instinct is 
devoid of any specific emotionality, — it being 
usually a periodic function of certain glandular 
motivation, and only embellished by emotions 
in certain concrete situations. The disorderly 
element in this instinct is the fact of, what might 
be called upon analysis, its promiscuous char- 
acter. The insecurity attendant upon this con- 
dition leads to the above-mentioned emotional 
embellishments of display and abasement. Self 
display and self abasement also originate in an 
environment where the truth is suppressed, and 
reappear quickly whenever analagous situa- 
tions occur. Thus the general adornment of 
the body, as well as the humility of a pension- 
er, may be entirely asexual, but the adornment 
and humility are both calculated to affect fa- 
vorably the one at whom they are directed, and 



322 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

as such are forms of those suppressed ideas 
known as lying. 

18. The parental instinct, with its attendant 
emotion of tenderness, is a function of the help- 
lessness of the young over which the parent be- 
comes solicitous. The child's self help cannot 
be forced, — it must be slowly developed, and 
slowly strengthened. The realization of the 
discrepancy between its present condition and 
that of mature development, as well as the ne- 
cessity to do nothing but wait until such self 
help matures, constitute the disorder in the 
situation evoking this form of response. Not 
unfrequently is the parental instinct manifested 
as a form of scepticism, which is a selective re- 
sponse to the abstract disorder of the cosmos. 
Again, the background of tender emotion may 
become studded with all sorts of violent emo- 
tions. The extremes to which all creatures go 
in order to defend their young, the chastisement 
which sometimes gets meted out to children 
upon the most trivial occasions, and the alter- 
nations of imperiousness and fawning which 
parents bestow upon their offspring, illustrate 
the point. Under the spell of the tender emo- 
tion, perceptual distortion is the rule; the "cute" 
acts of one's own children may at the same 
time be equivalent to vandalism, and a "prank" 

323 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

in one environment may be an evidence of con- 
cealed misanthropy in another. Later on, the 
confidence in the superiority of one's own chil- 
dren, — on account of parental joy in being a 
cause, — is the basis of the plebian dogma that 
no one is quite good enough to mate with them. 
All these events are mal-adjustments, and the 
nearsightedness which must go with such in- 
stinctive and emotional reactions appears to be 
incurable if treated strictly within its own 
terms. 

19. Gregariousness is the social instinct par 
excellence. Only the few are hermits, the rest 
of us are beholders and beholden all the while 
to the rest of society. Perhaps no other in- 
stinct could be gotten along so poorly without, 
and yet no other instinct demands as its tax so 
much equilibration to render it harmless. In- 
deed, the virtues, so-called, are the taxes we 
have to pay for gregariousness. It arises out of 
the fear of solitude, the uneasiness we feel at 
being absent from our fellows. But I take it 
that it is not bound up with any affection for 
our fellows, for we do not necessarily like those 
with whom we prefer to be. The main discom- 
fort of solitude comes through the realization of 
unfilled spaces between our body and those of 
others. Cities, states, clubs, fraternities, 

324 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

churches, and all other organizations are pri- 
marily social aggregations for the annihilation 
of solitude. Solitary confinement in prison is 
the rational psychological limit of punishment, 
since we are not so constituted as to systemati- 
cally punish a man by utter "cold shoulder." 
Were such the case, doubtless the person so re- 
jected would immediately put himself off. The 
jokes about bachelors and old maids are con- 
cealed scorn at a lack of gregariousness, regard- 
less of how dismal a predicament many of the 
"unclaimed blessings" so discriminated against, 
have escaped. This instinct, however, does not 
in any way guarantee that the satisfying person 
shall be met by the mere fact of there being 
other bodies in the vicinity, and as such it rep- 
resents again the general principles of disorder 
and absence of clear perception. 

20. It is hard to draw the line between the 
play motive and the instinct of acquisition. We 
saw in the former chapter, that the movements 
of the stomach were gone through with regard- 
less of the presence of nutriment in that organ. 
Thus it is in many another situation with re- 
gard to the human body, — series, rather than 
reasons are the ultimate bases of situations. In 
play and acquisitiveness we find basic certain 
odd fumblings, manipulations, gatherings and 

325 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

scatterings, apparently from an excess of ener- 
gies, though not a surfeit of them. Certain mo- 
tions can be gone through with at a low ex- 
penditure of energy without the slightest degree 
of exhaustion ensuing. Acquisition also arises 
out of fumbling, but the resulting conscious- 
ness, — predominantly motor, — of having things 
in a certain spacial and motor relation to the 
body, produces further stimulations to the same 
end, and we keep gathering rather than throw- 
ing away. When such occurs, we have a case 
of perception. For the word "mine" principal- 
ly means "that thing frequently responded to." 
Furthermore, thinking about the things we have 
so responded to is auto-catalytic in its charac- 
ter. At the basis of miserliness and wealth lies 
this instinct of acquisition, — both differing sole- 
ly in the co-presence of the instinct of self dis- 
play. But there is no evidence for believing 
that there is an intention behind this response, 
— those forever planning to become rich, rare- 
ly becoming so. On the other hand, let Socra- 
tes come up and ask the possessor of wealth 
why, or to what end he is accumulating, and he 
cannot for the life of him tell. No reason given 
is exclusively in the field of inquiry. In this 
connection one will observe that the instincts 
are not characterized by any specific, nameable 

326 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

content. Hoarding and jealousy may become 
co-functioned, but hoarding and generosity may 
also appear together. The successful business 
man may dislike the whole scheme of his en- 
deavors, or the unsuccessful one be of the opin- 
ion that his plans cannot fail. In all such cases, 
the non-focality to the person himself of his 
ruling manifestation is indicative of the general 
principle of disorder as the basis of instinct. 

21. Constructiveness is frequently named 
among the instincts, but for our purposes only 
the random fumbling of objects preparatory to 
the possible ordering of them on the basis of 
perceptions, could be called by any such name 
as "original tendency." Furthermore, fumbling 
is typical of mal-adjustment, and appears to 
have no specific, attendant emotion. Psycholo- 
gists have never admitted that destructiveness is 
as "original" as is constructiveness, for they 
have steadfastly overlooked the fact that young 
children maltreat and destroy long before they 
ever build or construct. Constructiveness and 
destructiveness might be profitably treated of 
together, even if but for the differences they 
show which are not manifest in the spelling of 
the words. For the first of these lacks those 
anger elements which the second possesses. 
Random fumbling, again, may be suddenly su- 

327 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

perseded by the perception of order, and thus 
be brought to some sort of furthering conclu- 
sion; while destructiveness meets all orderly 
situations only to disregard their perceptual ele- 
ments, and to reduce them to disorder. Once 
more, certain successful achieving of a pattern 
is frequently followed by the loss of that pat- 
tern, and so the orderly and disorderly series 
may alternate with considerable frequency. 
Only in point of its intermittent clumsiness, 
then, do we call construction an instinct, for 
when a dominant pattern is attained and stead- 
ily functioned, the environment becomes stable, 
and the responses non-contradictory. On the 
other hand, destructiveness is functioned by a 
strabismic consciousness, that is to say, a cross- 
section in which many un-shot complexes are 
smouldering, whose functioning is anti-social 
in its tendency. Vandalism, the joy of produc- 
ing carnage, the antique postulate of a trans- 
temporal oven in which those not holding views 
tangent to our own were to be eventually kept 
at n degrees Centigrade, — such are common ex- 
amples of this response to internal disorder 
with its attending manifestations. Even to see 
one building torn down to replace another 
causes some orderly minds to avoid the sight, 
as well as to feel resentment at the act. And 

328 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

there is perhaps validity in the legal status of 
those who butcher for an occupation, in that 
they are excluded from certain jury service on 
the basis of lacking perceptions of the orderly 
status of an organism amongst its kind. 

22. Three other forms of complexes may 
suitably be presented here. These are sugges- 
tion, sympathy, and imitation. The first has to 
do with the inducing of a non-perceiving con- 
sciousness to function the ideas of another when 
put into words calculated to appeal to his in- 
stincts or emotions; and also to formulate pre- 
maturely his motor functioning on that basis. 
Sympathy is the appeal to, or sharing of, the 
surface emotions of another, with or without 
attempting to stir up the background of sup- 
pressed and smouldering complexes. Imitation 
is either copying the motor responses of an- 
other, especially gross movements, or copying 
the effects produced by another, — all such copy- 
ing being virtual in its identity rather than fact- 
ual. No resident benefit lies in any of these 
three, considered as bare descriptions of what 
happens in cases where they are exhibited. Nev- 
ertheless they can be made subservient to al- 
most any purpose promulgated, and this is of 
large account in the educational world, as well 



329 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

as in advertising and selling, and the general 
business of social organization. 

23. McDougall's enumeration of the com- 
plexes of emotions falls into two groups. The 
first one does not necessarily imply the existence 
of sentiments, while the second one does. "Senti- 
ment" is taken to mean "an organized system 
of emotional tendencies centered about some 
object." In the first group there are the fol- 
lowing emotional complexes. 

(a) Admiration. This is a compound of 
wonder and negative self-feeling. (By com- 
pound is meant a simultaneous occurrence, 
sometimes in the form of partial fusion, some- 
times not.) 

(b) Awe, This is composed of admiration 
and fear. 

(c) Reverence. This is derived from a 
blend of awe and gratitude, both of the ele- 
ments of awe being clearly present. 

(d) Gratitude. This is composed of the 
tender emotion and negative self -feeling. 

(e) Scorn. A mixture of awe and disgust. 

(f) Contempt. Composed of scorn and 
positive self-feeling. 

(g) Loathing. A compound of fear and 
disgust. 

(h) Horror is the acme of loathing. 
330 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

(i) Fascination. This is a mixture of loath- 
ing and wonder, fairly well balanced. 

(j) Hate is composed of anger, fear and 
disgust, while 

(k) Envy is derived from negative self- 
feeling and anger. It must be kept focal that 
the binary and tertiary character of these com- 
pounds is incapable of any such clear exhibi- 
tion or demonstration as is possible with sensa- 
tions and perceptions. And the "organized" 
character of them is little more than bare "with- 
ness." Structure they lack, and are thus re- 
sponses to situations involving disorder. But 
by virtue of possessing among themselves com- 
mon parts, or common functions, the transition 
from one to the other is readily made in the 
presence of the same exciting object. All it re- 
quires is that the object be in mal-adjustment, — 
the train of these complexes is then easy to fol- 
low. As a tacit verdict of humanity that these 
emotions are not solely referable to the body, 
we have the expressions, "loathsome sight/* 
"fascinating woman/' "hateful delay," "he treat- 
ed me with contempt/' and the like; and this is 
one of the signal examples of naivete being 
acute, whether by intention or not, with per- 
ception or without it. But naivete is far more 
concerned with complexes than with the other 

331 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

data of consciousness, and for this unexpected 
correctness it must not fail to have due credit. 

24. The following are the complex emo- 
tions which do imply the existence of senti- 
ments. 

(a) Reproach. This is composed of anger 
and the tender emotion. 

(b) Jealousy. In this we find a painfully 
checked positive self-feeling plus an oscillation 
between revenge and reproach. 

(c) Vengeful emotion. This is a compound 
of anger and a wounded self-regarding senti- 
ment. By the latter expression is meant that 
the insults one receives, if not at once resented 
and paid for, lower one in the eyes of his fel- 
lows. And in this predicament, (manifesting a 
wounded self-regard), it is curious to note, that, 
no matter how many eyes are turned upon one, 
the social center of gravity is not thereby set- 
tled in the object of such regard, but way off, 
as it were, clear outside the situation. It is as 
if the terms "beholder" and "beholden" in this 
case had absolutely nothing in common. 

(d) Resentment. This is what becomes of 
the vengeful emotion when the insult is at once 
avenged. It is perhaps nowhere better illustrat- 
ed than in the treatment of a subjugated na- 
tion by its victor. I do not mean the payment 

332 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

of indemnity, or the other material symbols of 
conquest, but the lasting desire of the conquer- 
ors to see the individuals of the losing nation 
humbled and browbeaten. It is as if on the 
material side an eye would pay for an eye, but 
on the sentimental side, a whole jaw were none 
too much to satisfy the loss of a tooth. Stir- 
ring a nation to patriotism, likewise, is often 
nothing more than arousing a feeling of injury 
by generalizing, and sentimentally magnifying 
some forgivable misdemeanor that was never 
meant to provoke the use of cartridges. 

(e) Shame. This is a struggle between 
self-display and self-abasement, with their at- 
tendant emotions of positive and negative self- 
feeling. Just why shame, as a weakening con- 
dition, should have been so largely used in mat- 
ters of moral significance, is easier to determine 
from a legal than from a psychological stand- 
point. The legalistic view of good and bad 
makes special use of this sentiment on the 
ground that the intensest subjugation is justifi- 
able. Psychologically, there is nothing to op- 
pose justifying the means by the end, if the 
end is worthy; but as soon as the question of 
which end is worthier is introduced, the status 
of the shamed individual must come in for its 
share of consideration. When the struggle be- 

333 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tween self-display and self-abasement, as in 
shame, becomes reconciled by a blending of 
the two, we have, instead, 

(f) Bashfulness. 

(g) Remorse is shameful and angry regret, 
(h) Joy is separable into what is called the 

esthetic pleasure of contemplation, (with which 
we shall deal in the last chapter of this book), 
combined with sympathetically induced pleas- 
ure, the tender emotion, and positive self-feel- 
ing. 

(i) Sorrow, on the other hand, is not the 
negative of the above, but rather composed of a 
baffled tender emotion, (such as occurs in death 
and the loss of the recipient of affection), pride 
and hope negated, and negative self-feeling. Sor- 
row and joy are usually spoken of as antithetic- 
al, but by analysis, only one term is seen to be 
logically negatived in passing from one to the 
other. Their antithetical character depends 
upon the motor possibilities which can be stim- 
ulated under their dominance of the organism. 
In this respect, psychological opposition and 
logical opposition have many interesting dif- 
ferences, which the student should carefully 
find for himself, inasmuch as erroneous infer- 
ence arises from the confusing of the two. 

(j) Pity, McDougall calls the tender emo- 
334 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

tion, tinged with sympathetically induced pain. 
Pain in this sense, as well as pleasure as above 
used, never refers to what we meant in the 
first chapter by the sensation pain or the sen- 
sational attriiDute pleasure. For pain, one should 
here substitute unpleasantness, and in emotion- 
al complexes he should also regard it as much 
stronger than sensorial feeling-tone, inasmuch 
as emotional discharges are stronger than tro- 
pistic releases. Furthermore, when there is 
lacking the release of the suppressed energy in 
emotions, there is functioned both negative self- 
feeling, and that which McDougall, whom I 
have generally followed, means here by pain. 

(k) Happiness is enumerated at the close 
of the account, and it appears to mean a gen- 
eral bodily Duoyancy as a result of clear percep- 
tion and satisfactory functioning. But we are 
here on the border line of ethics, the psychology 
of which must be reserved for the following 
and final chapter. 

25. Mood is hereby defined as a co-con- 
scious appearance of any emotion or sentiment. 
It may be strong or w^eak, and when linked with 
some specifically characteristic motor manifest- 
ation, it is called temperament. It is significant 
to note that both mood and temperament may 
be functioned side by side with certain further- 

335 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ing perceptions, but this fact of togetherness 
does not make mood and temperament strictly 
perceptual in character. All suppression is ac- 
companied by the expenditure of energy, and 
whenever suppression occurs, it means both 
less than the normal amount of clear perception 
and less definite motor functioning on the basis 
of a furthering pattern. In all these sentiments, 
it is plainly seen that the thesis of this chap- 
ter in regard to the disorderly object or situa- 
tion as their stimulus, and a mal-adjustment to 
the situation as their motor aspect, need not be 
recanted. 

The Crowd. 
26. The social order, in which we find our- 
selves irrevocably embedded all the while, is 
one of the environments to which we cannot 
help but respond. It is not the only one of 
this kind, however, and even though it be a dis- 
ordered object, it yet lies in the midst of an- 
other environment, called, for want of a parti- 
san term, the universe. Now the conscious 
cross-section not only contains responses to so- 
ciety, to sense data, and to perceptions; but we 
also respond to principles of order, and to 
things which are neither mental, physical, mor- 
al, social, or artistic, but which are the stuff 
or stuffs out of which these orders are generat- 

336 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

ed, and into which they plunge more or less firm 
roots. This merely in passing, for the business 
of psychology, while concerned with responses, 
(and thereto with all the responses that an or- 
ganism makes), has not within its province the 
ordering of non-human responses and tenden- 
cies, but only of those which can be glued to 
pronouns of various calibre. And one of these 
pronouns w^hich we shall straightway consider 
is the pronoun "w^e." 

27. The pronoun we, with its other forms 
of they, us, ours, their, them, and the like, is 
symbolical of that domain known as the Crowd. 
In this connection the material here pre- 
sented is drawn from Gustave Le Bon's account 
of "The Crowd," all of which would amply re- 
pay perusal. The crowd is a curious organiza- 
tion. Its intended perceptions are swamped by 
instincts and emotions, and its deliberative pow> 
er is in inverse proportion to its size and the 
proximity of its members. A crowd may be any 
group of people in one area, in sight of or bod- 
ily contact with each other, or, it may be com- 
posed of spacially isolated individuals respond- 
ing to the same or duplicated stimulus. The 
crowded spectators of a base-ball game are a 
crowd, as well as the isolated readers of the 
morning paper at the breakfast table. There 

337 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
are two main types of crowds, — heterogeneous, 
and homogeneous. The first of these consists 
of individuals casually and haphazardly 
brought together. No deliberation or choice 
exists on the part of the members of such a 
crowd, leading them to just that place, or expos- 
ing them to just those other human beings thus 
met. The heterogeneous crowd is of two sub- 
sidiary types, — anonymous and not-anonymous. 
Street crowds, base-ball crowds, circus crowds 
and the like, are anonymous; while juries, par- 
liamentary assemblies, college faculties, lodges, 
and church gatherings, are of the second type. 
28. All such assemblies, whether suddenly 
congregated, or slowly agglutinized, are under 
the sway of unconscious sentiments. Every dif- 
ferent nation is typified in the manner in which 
groups of its individual citizens get excited and 
pledged to some cause or movement. A 
crowd will demand anything its leader emotion- 
alizes them to demand. But who is its leader? 
Not the speaker who happens to be addressing 
them or leading them on. Not the principles 
enunciated from a rostrum or the slogan into 
which he crystallizes their opinion. Their lead- 
er is rather the summation of their smothered 
emotions, their unformulated dissatisfactions; 
for the thing for which they vote, cheer, or pour 

338 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

out their energies may not be at all that which 
they, as individuals, in calm moments, might 
determine upon as something desirable. It is 
only the fact that something is presented to 
them as being in a like condition to what they 
imagine themselves to be which arouses their 
enthusiasm, and this vicariously functions the 
exhibition of emotions, sentiments and instincts 
in its behalf. All heterogeneous crowds are an 
example of co-conscious and unconscious func- 
tioning of a disorderly object. In all such groups 
there is a slight inclination toward anarchy and 
barbarism. 

29. Homogeneous crowds are divided into 
these three groups, sects, castes, and classes, (a) 
Sects, whether political or religious. In all sects, 
the individual members may differ very much 
as to education, caste, or profession. But the 
unifying element in them is some principle 
which is of another series than their education 
or profession, and to which these make no dif- 
ference. Some belief is aroused, some need for 
its application is shown, and the rest follows. 
Further unification comes through the expendi- 
ture of motor energies to the cause; wealth is 
poured out, buildings are erected to house the 
assemblies of the members, and the strength or 
weakness of the belief in the principle of the sect 

339 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
is manifested by the number of things they fur- 
ther in connection with their material develop- 
ment. A belief is a meaning, and therefore it is 
tested for its tenacity by what those function- 
ing it will do upon occasion or in a crisis. Its 
strength or weakness, and its truth or falsity 
need have no connection. The pragmatic test of 
history as to whether beliefs have held, and 
the logical analysis of their terminology and co- 
herence, are two separate and distinct items; 
the pragmatic test is an emotional one in this 
case, and the test of analysis is one of percept- 
ual character. The first is an example of in- 
formal logic, the second, of the logic of exact 
formulation. It need not surprise the student 
of exact logic to find that analysis usually dis- 
covers nothing stable in all forms of popular 
beliefs. It is only in the science of psychology 
that we find a complete account of erratic emo- 
tional functions. 

30. (b) There are three chief castes 
among Anglo-Saxons, namely, the priestly, the 
military, and the host of occupations. In these 
we find the highest type of crowd organization. 
The labor unions, it is safe to say, represent the 
most unsettled type of caste, — the other two, 
the priestly and the military, represent more 
systematic stratification, with a resultant of sat- 

340 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

isfaction and contentment with their lot. In 
heterogeneous races the volatile and mercurial 
elements are necessarily predominant, and the 
era of strikes is unavoidable in a people just 
coming into individuality. In such cases, the 
caste may be said to be crystallizing. On the 
other hand, where several generations of the 
same family follow the same occupation, — thus 
making a homogeneous race in point of com- 
pleted stratification, — no disturbance whatever 
is so emotionalized as that which threatens the 
downfall of such a caste system into which the 
individuals have been cemented. One might 
again point out the fact that no matter how 
much we clamor at times for a change, the rec- 
ord of past events shows that those who clam- 
ored loudest, were the most unwilling recipients 
of it, as well as those who sank back the soon- 
est into their former condition. 

31. (c) We usually enumerate three 
classes, — the peasant, middle, and aristocratic. 
The habits, education, and interest of the in- 
dividual members of each of these are very 
similar. Sometimes it is difficult to draw the 
line between the members of these three classes, 
there being many kinds of recognized aristocra- 
cies, such as those of wealth, of talent, of intel- 
ligence, and so on. In classifying classes, how- 

341 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ever, the monetary test is usually applied, and 
the border line cases omitted. By this means, 
also, it is easy to see why these classes have the 
poorest form of organization of all crowds, 
whether heterogeneous or homogeneous; for all 
those in the peasant and middle classes who are 
struggling out of them do not want any organ- 
ization that solidifies their position in that class, 
and the rest are too busy maintaining their posi- 
tion to become organized. The nouveau riche 
furnish in this instance curious hints of the mo- 
mentum which economic conditions give to 
functions of a social character, for their un- 
conscious complexes, becoming suddenly re- 
leased, indicate the disorder which the condi- 
tion of sudden wealth produces. 

32. When a crowd functions some punish- 
able disorder, it becomes a criminal crowd, or 
mob. But no one person in a crowd is doing 
exactly what the whole crowd may be said to be 
doing in such a case. In fact, nobody is at the 
head of a crowd. It has no head, for it is only 
releasing collective complexes, only satisfying 
its collective grudges. The ringleaders are us- 
ually punished, because the law demands a vic- 
tim; but the ringleaders are often only those 
spacially in front of the others, and only seem- 
ingly more indecorous than those pushing from 

342 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

behind. Thus when one asks, "who started the 
rumpus?", it is not altogether a joke when each 
suspected culprit avers to the contrary. But, as 
Le Bon says, "All collectivities have it in them 
to develop to a high degree certain ferocious 
and tender instincts." For the collective mind 
is an accumulation of suddenly uncorked sup- 
pressions, and what is done by it is a function 
of the environmental possibilities of the situa- 
tion as well as of the individual complexes. The 
crowd usually demands some one to be its lead- 
er as well as some candidate for anathema or 
praise. If a crowd is witnessing a fire at night, 
when a rescue is attempted, it is sometimes pa- 
thetic, sometimes ridiculous, and again some- 
times terrifying to see how the crowd both ten- 
derly nurses along the rescue, and also threat- 
ens an unsuccessful rescuer with the death he 
failed to avert. It roars and defames, it weeps 
and cries, it groans; it uses the same words in 
a "sacred and hushed tone" as it does in yelling 
and shouting. Here the object eliciting the re- 
sponses is clearly a disordered one, though oft- 
en hard to name in exact terms. 

33. Deliberative assemblies have worked 
out a system which substantiates my thesis in 
this chapter. Important measures are first pre- 
sented, then debated, then referred to a com- 

343 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

mittee, and so on, in order for the emotional 
element to have its little part, if need be; but 
also in order for the measure to have its logical 
and perceptual inning as well. Often, indeed, a 
committee or a single individual drafts and ad- 
judicates a matter with but the scantest refer- 
ence to the collective body that finally passes 
on it. On this principle, absolute monarchy is 
worthy of some consideration, psychologically, 
as well as such forms of government known as 
oligarchies and aristocracies, in the strict sense 
of these terms. Popular government is basea 
on the idea that the many think better than 
the few. Psychology has nothing to say about 
government, but only about crowd organiza- 
tions in point of which this further quotation 
from Le Bon is pertinent : "In any deliberative 
assembly, called upon to give its verdict about 
a matter not entirely technical, the intelligence 
of the individual members counts for nothing." 
34. The jury is a heterogeneous crowd, 
formed on occasion into a deliberating body. 
Why twelve members should constitute it is re- 
ferable to informal logic. Juries are usually 
made up of strangers, and as such represent an 
organization in which the knowledge of other 
minds engaged in the same work as one's own 
is supposed to count for nothing. This may or 

344 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

may not be so, but it is only for us to say here 
that after a jury gets into the jury room to con- 
sult and deliberate, the results show something 
quite irreconcilable with the notion that the 
jury does not behave as a heterogeneous crowd. 
Juries are not unimpressible by the prestige, 
wealth, beauty, widowhood, countenance, and 
so on, of those witnessing, or on trial before the 
bar; and their emotions are often the only hope 
of the lawyers functioning in the case. Even 
though argument and debate are indulged in in 
the jur}^ room, the crowd character is never 
suD-focal there. Stubborn men have also been 
Known to completely reverse the tendency of 
the first ballot, — it being a test of endurance 
rather than a careful, cool deliberation which 
deciclea the case. It is the opinion of more than 
the writer that all juries shoulu be forced to 
taKe a cold bath before going into the jury room, 
ana should further be obliged to avoid all vaso- 
motor constrictions by whatever means would 
be safest and quickest at the same time. 

35. The informal logic of crowd reasoning 
is evidence of the disordered environment 
which it is functioning. The most exaggerated 
and ingenious sentiments are indulged in. The 
crowd never distinguishes between the actual 
and the virtual, between the possible and the 

345 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

impossible, or between the internal and external 
aspects of the thing presented to it. It de- 
mands "equality," or "liberty," or asks things 
which are entirely beyond its power to use. It 
scorns a feeble, but reveres a strong authority; 
a reported weakness in the government will 
raise a mob very easily, but the report of even 
iron-handed dealings will at once quiet their 
emotional unrest. "Might makes right" is act- 
ually crowd reasoning, whether it be also true, 
false, or absurd. Catch phrases, slogans, and 
shibboleths, are just the material out of which 
crowd reasoning is constructed. The orator 
who addresses the crowed on the street need say 
nothing rational, just so long as he speaks in 
terms which the crowd will interpret as being 
"what it thought also." An emotional collec- 
tivity thinks and speaks anything at all, the 
more disconnected it is the surer is it of being 
emotionally functioned; and so such things as 
analogical reasons are cheered as the very acme 
of truth and right. Crowds are also impressed 
by the marvelous. They demand some author- 
ity, and in lieu of living governors of men, any 
dead hero or nebulous ancestor will do very 
nicely. National figures of the past century, 
traditions, the longevity of customs, the great- 
ness or decline of an institution, — all these 

346 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

stimuli manifest a universal tyranny over all 
sorts of crowds in all sorts of nations and ages. 
"The one tyranny humanity has always been 
under is the memory of its dead." But shake 
once the confidence of a people in its past, and 
you will find that "the end of a belief is the 
beginning of a revolution." And it is not amiss 
at this point to recall the passages in this book 
on auto-catalytic action as the basis of neural 
momentum, with the other remark about the 
desire for change we so often function in 
speech. For the crowd is after all only a magni- 
fied individual, and in the midst of a crowd we 
can often detect more of our smothered emo- 
tions and tendencies than in any other situa- 
tion that offers itself. Neural unification is rare, 
while self contradiction, which is a function of 
chronic, unresolved neural inhibitions, appears 
to be not only one of the chief products of any 
and all instinctive and emotional manifesta- 
tions, but indeed their source. 

36. Another form which the emotional 
complex takes is the dream. This normally oc- 
curs in sleep, and is the rearousal of forgotten 
or suppressed ideas which have not been func- 
tioned during waking hours. It is substan- 
tially the revelation of a wish, — by which may 
equally be meant the hope that something will 

347 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

happen, as well as the fear that something might 
happen. But in either case a dream is an un- 
shot residue of emotional or instinctive func- 
tioning, — the back-water of consciousness. Be- 
fore entering into the physiological or ideation- 
al processes which give dreams their being, it 
wdll be profitable to consider briefly other forms 
of the rearousal of past consciousness, in order 
that comparison, contrast, and orientation may 
serve as means whereby they may be better 
understood. 

37. These other forms are memory and 
imagination. Memory has until recently been 
considered as something which resided in cer- 
tain cells of the cerebrum, and which, by a 
process of irradiation or some such neural re- 
lease, got into consciousness. Both of these 
views, — that of its being a single process, and 
that of its being the dormant content of special 
brain cells, — are not to be upheld in this book. 
There have been found in laboratory investiga- 
tions not one but four different modes of re- 
arousal of past events, none of which give mem- 
ory contents exactly identical with the original. 
Memory, far from being a reduplication of the 
object, is a tendency to approach the class of 
objects of which the sense datum remembered 
is but an instance, or a member, and when this 

348 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

memory content is fully developed, we have 
concepts, rather than percepts or sensory de- 
tails. So that every remembered object is on 
the way to generalization or conceptual content. 
On the other hand, the four kinds of rearousal 
of the content differ much from one another. 
And there is always a gap, a latency, between 
the sensorial presentation and the recall, and 
what is going on in this gap escapes introspec- 
tion. We have seen the particular object, let us 
say, but when the rearousal comes, we shall 
then be visualizing onl}^ that general class of 
visual phenomena instead; and this gap or la- 
tency is the time in which the particularity of 
the content is being lost. But this is nothing 
outrageous, for the particular object was also a 
member of its class, particular in this case 
meaning only that certain specific members of 
the series constituting it were functioned togeth- 
er. And each of these members had affiliations, 
common parts, — functional or contential, — 
with many other members of those series. Such, 
indeed, is often the case even with sensation. 
The paradoxical cold and heat, the tickle sen- 
sation, the estimation of movement and so on, 
all differ at times from the mathematical and 
physical status of the stimulus in ways that are 
familiar enough to need no exclamation points 

349 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

as we pass. So that while in the focal area of 
consciousness we function with the words "this 
particular one," the sub-focal areas of con- 
sciousness could be as well functioned by the 
expression, "one of those which has been func- 
tioned before," as by other words referring to 
focality. Thus it is that when the object is re- 
moved from sense focality, and we recall it, 
while mentioning it or not, what gets restored 
in after-imagery is that cross-section of the se- 
ries making the object, which will be normally 
functioned with the least effort possible. But 
mark, that an intense effort to recall something 
is always accompanied by a tension in the body, 
as well as by an effort to place our organism in 
the identical relation to the absent stimulus as 
it was to it while present. For ideas are func- 
tioned by the aid of bodily attitudes, just as 
emotions are functions of the general disturb- 
ance caused by our bodily mis-orientation with 
the situation. 

38. The four ways of reinstating absent 
stimuli are these. 1. Perseveration, which 
means that, shortly after its disappearance, 
without any mediating focal ideas, there is a re- 
currence of the original idea. 2. Persistence, 
(which usually occurs in fatigue or exhaustion), 
whereby is meant that ideas become repetitive 

350 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

because we no longer perceive differences, or 
react in a discriminating manner to the sensory- 
present. 3. Iteration, or the random recur- 
rence of fleeting impressions, and 4. The free 
emergence of those things we have often func- 
tioned, especially motor habits. Now if any 
one wishes to know how the absent object gets 
reinstated, or past functioning repeated, the 
answer is that the pastness or absence of the 
object is one thing, and its non-dependence 
upon consciousness for its existence is another. 
An object is something that will stimulate, 
whether it be orthogonally disposed to the body 
and its sense organs or not. The time series is 
one series and the space series is another, but 
there are other series, neither in time nor space, 
as we pointed out in the first part of Chapter 
III. Things have position in the order of knowl- 
edge, as well as in Florida or the year 1914. 
Things also have position in space twice at the 
same time and even twice in the same space, if 
we but open our eyes to that fact. 

39. Let this specifically serve as an exam- 
ple. When we hang a mirror on the wall of 
a room, and stand in front of it, we can see our- 
selves doubled, — literally projected through the 
wall into the space beyond. If the wall of the 
room is continuous with the sheer edge of a 

351 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

precipice, we do not see the object mirrored 
behind the wall tumble into the chasm below, 
even though its position relative to us is beyond 
the threshold of safety. And yet the mirrored 
object is colorful, shapely, motile, almost every- 
thing that we are, — except that it has no weight. 
But neither have our shape, color, and motility 
any weight. So that the mirrored object is 
composed of all those qualities which are not 
physical objects. This is also the substance of 
ideas. This, likewise, is the substance of mem- 
ories. The mirrored object is faithful to the 
shape, color, and movements of the original, 
but the mirror merely analyses out the non-ma- 
terial properties, and is thus a logical instru- 
ment as well as a sense organ, strictly defined. 
If a man is standing in front of a mirror and 
shaves himself, the mirror, of course reversing 
every horizontal movement relative to the ob- 
server, will betray the slight abrasion that the 
"real" skin suffers. But while the man's face 
has a tiny drop of blood upon it, the mirror 
face has not, — it has only a drop of red, which 
is one of the essential properties of the contents 
of the capillaries. Again, "the painted hawser 
will hold the painted ship," but it takes a rope 
hawser to hold a wooden ship. And so on. 
Thus the point is well taken that the physical 

352 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

order of things is not the only order into which 
they get, regardless of the status of those other 
orders. But certainly they are not in the same 
time and space, nor entirely under the same 
laws as are the physical orders commonly ap- 
pealed to for truth and validity. 

40. This is not only an aside; it is a neces- 
sary prologue to the proper understanding of 
memory and other co- and sub-conscious phe- 
nomena. The rehabilitation of the object in 
some sort of sensory content, faint and unfaith- 
ful though it be, is no more mysterious than is 
the phenomenon of mirror space. Nor is the 
motor readjustment of the body to a situation 
in which some instinct or emotion is repeated 
by the mere mention of a word or the presen- 
tation of an idea, any more subtle than are the 
original orders of things which get cross-sec- 
tioned into sensation and perception. The ob- 
jects of memory and imagination have no po- 
sition, and may be anywhere, just as the quali- 
ties of sensation may be anywhere. And mem- 
ory that comes pat with the provoking stimulus 
is primarily a function of the bodily attitude. 
We are set for that recall by a definite motor 
pattern, — we have crystallized toward a certain 
set of perceptions, and the sensory or motor ele- 



353 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

ments follow as readily as the water from the 
faucet when we turn it on. 

41. Memory, like the word "experience," 
is used both as a noun and a verb. The distinc- 
tion is well taken in connection with sensory 
content, but when we come to the motor mem- 
ories, we have a more intricate matter to deal 
with. The memory (subconscious) of the oper- 
ations of dressing is both a content and a pro- 
cess, let us say; but just where one begins and 
the other ends is rather obscure. And the rea- 
son is, that the clothes we wear and therewith 
clothe ourselves in the morning, are themselves 
best defined by the things we do with them. A 
hat is something that is worn on the head, shoes 
are things that are worn on the feet, and so on 
throughout the wardrobe. So that, since these 
articles are of the class of attributes-things- 
functions, so are memories which involve their 
accustomed use. Emotions and instincts are 
also of this class of objects, curiously tangled 
and interwoven, so that we have called them 
functions of the body, not because they are in- 
side of the skin and ooze through the pores, but 
because their position is obscure. We thus re- 
fer to the body out of a desire to spacialize them 
and give them position somewhere. 

42. Imagination differs from memory in 

354 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

that it is just a more agile and less personal 
transformation of the elements of the objects 
reinstated. James rightly spoke of "the date 
in our past" which all remembered things have, 
while, on the other hand, the imagination con- 
tent was everybody's, being nobody's. But this 
little hint may serve to make the distinction 
clearer. Memory is the result of having a motor 
pattern congruous with more elements that have 
become ingrained in us than is the case with 
imagination. There is no difference in the con- 
tent, relative position, clearness, or other fea- 
tures in both of these rearousals, but only in 
the familiarity with which we greet them, and 
memory is called mine sooner than is imagina- 
tion; and mine in this case means both period- 
icity, ingraining, and readiness of motor func- 
tioning. 

43. Now for dreams. Two main condition- 
ers are to be mentioned in this instance, — the 
physiological and the ideational. On the side 
of the organism as a contributing element, we 
find that sleep is the usual state in which dreams 
occur. Day-dreams resemble night dreams in 
that they demand a certain lack of motor focus 
in the body before they come, — a certain pre- 
ponderance of co-conscious elements. Sleep, by 
which we mean the condition of a tired body, 

355 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
relaxed, unstimulated by sense data, and be- 
coming ineffectual with regard to its environ- 
ment, is principally accompanied (a) by a loss 
of blood to the brain and a gain to the extrem- 
ities, (b) by a relaxation of tone in the vaso- 
motor system, (c) by the retraction of the den- 
drites, and (d) by a diminution of the supply 
of oxygen in the brain. And yet, while the ma- 
jority of functions are dormant, the thresholds 
are not all high. A mother who wakes not at 
the thunder storm, but yet at the slightest stir- 
ring in the cradle, is set not for thunder but 
for the needs of her child, and her sleep is thus 
only partial. Indeed we all sleep thus partial- 
ly, unless the sleep be caused by intoxication. 
Let us at once state, furthermore, that this par- 
tial sleep is the physiological element in our 
dreams. 

44. Let us clarify this further. If there are 
any suppressed ideas in our consciousness when 
we fall asleep, they usually get functioned in 
some manner not anticipated. Any slight stimu- 
lus will be sufficient to arouse them, even if there 
is nothing more than an informal logical rela- 
tion between the conscious elements. We do 
not predict dreams, but we nevertheless infer 
their origin with surprising certainty. Psycho- 
analysis, which is usually misreported in popu- 

356 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

lar accounts of it, has been the method by 
which dreams have been pinned to the objects 
which have stimulated them. This analysis con- 
sists in obtaining from the subject, either verb- 
ally or in his own writing, all of the ideas which 
leisurely come in train at the mention of one 
of the elements in his dream, — particularly 
those concerning which there is obscurity as to 
their place or meaning. The subject must be 
truthful and keep back nothing, regardless of 
its intimacy or scandal. From the few blessed 
regenerates who are willing thus to admit their 
human nature, we obtain valuable information 
in regard to dreams. 

45. Such a train of ideas is called "free 
association," but 1 do not mean by this that it 
has anything to do with the notorious doctrine 
of association which every book on psychology 
seems to find virtue in repeating. According 
to it, ideas are said to follow one another in 
the same order as they have been together be- 
fore, by virtue of their similarity, contrast, con- 
tiguity in time, or contiguity in space. Titch- 
ener dealt this doctrine its first fatal blow in 
his reduction of these four categories to one 
only, — namely contiguity in space, which for 
him summarizes them all. 1 shall wipe even 
this one away. Very little that is temporally 

357 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

or spacially together gets remembered, or even 
functioned. And the order of recall does not 
follow the order of presentation except when 
motor ingraining has thoroughly taken place. 
Ideas are, according to this doctrine of associa- 
tionism, not identical with, but rather complete- 
ly distinct, from things, and between the two 
God has put a gulf so wide that no one can cross 
it in less than two leaps. These ideas were said 
to come and go in the manner of visitors, and 
furthermore said to have laws of entrance, eti- 
quette, and exit. No such rationality disposes 
the ideas. Logic is no description of how we 
think, for thinking as independent of the prop- 
erties of objects is a downright fabrication on 
the part of those who must perforce provide 
something for the soul to do. Functional de- 
pendence is the law of the connection of ideas 
that have pattern and sequence relative to the 
objects of which they are a part; and such triv- 
ial categories as similarity and togetherness are 
wholly secondary. How much, indeed, of the 
temporal or spacial present gets recalled in com- 
parison with M^hat never gets focally recalled? 
The proportion is almost painfully small. What 
gets recalled is what gets into the pattern of 
motor manifestations, so far as focal conscious- 
ness is concerned; and, on the other hand, inso- 

358 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

far as the dream consciousness is concerned, 
the order of recall and presentation is just as 
random as the emotionality that functions it, 
while the vagaries of the dreamer are just those 
shreds and clippings which the release of his 
suppressions brings to some sort of focality. 

46. The material of dreams is mostly de- 
rived from the day before the dream occurs. 
Dr. Sigmund Freud, the Viennese psychologist, 
who has rendered signal service in ferreting out 
dream material, divides it into two main parts, 
namely, the "latent content," or the whole 
thought-mass of the dream, and the "manifest 
content," or the part we recall and mention 
upon awakening. This manifest content is an 
allegory of the latent content, frequently con- 
taining imagery of the most unsuspected things. 
For example, wishes and emotions expressed 
in the dream may go by contraries. Suppose 
we have in waking life disliked some one ex- 
ceedingly. The dream may represent us as 
putting that person out of the way, and then 
being bitterly sorry for the deed. Or, we may 
be dreaming of saving his life as a sign that we 
wished him some, but not the extremest, harm. 
The important space and time values of the 
events of waking life may all become distorted, 
— the things occupying the smallest or largest 

359 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

spaces in dreams usually being opposite to their 
size in the waking estimation. Again, two per- 
sons manifesting the same emotion in a dream 
usually are found to represent the same per- 
sonality. As a general thing, also, the concept 
enters in largely, — dreaming of an immigrant 
will typify strangeness, timidity, or the fear of 
a new venture, and so on. 

47. Now all of this material comes from 
past life and not from some spook who inhabits 
the corners of the brain or the sleeping room. 
The sensory vividness of the dream usually re- 
fers to the events of the day before, while the 
rest of it is the releases of tension which social 
and other pressures have necessitated. Five 
main sources are to be mentioned in this con- 
nection, (a) Any interrupted thought not fin- 
ished at the time, (b) All unsolved problems, 
which will tend to be flashed again and again 
upon the dreamer's consciousness in kaleido- 
scopic form. (c) Rejected or suppressed 
trains of thinking, (d) Parts of co-conscious- 
ness aroused from the previous day's life, recol- 
lections of where we hid things, or inadvert- 
antly put them away, (e) Indifferent or float- 
ing impressions of things. The making of the 
dream out of these materials is accomplished in 
the following way. First, there is the principle 

360 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

of condensation. Every element in the mani- 
fest content represents several things (not one) 
in the latent content. Common parts abound. 
Many anxieties are crowded into one terrifying 
situation, which by itself, and taken singly, may 
have little reference to the past of the dreamer. 
The second element in dream making is dis- 
placement. The intensity of an element in the 
manifest content is no index of its intensity 
in the latent content. Hyperbole is the name 
we apply to this in matters of spech in waking 
life. We dream that we are being slaughtered 
or pushed over a steep precipice. This may 
merely refer to former situations when some 
one unwittingly jostled us, or caused us a slight 
annoyance. The magnitude of the distortion, 
however, depends upon the emotionality and 
unification of the personality; the most out- 
wardly modest and pious people may have the 
worst dreams, but this modesty and piety are 
no index of their suppressions, which may be 
maintained in vanity as well as in sincerity. A 
third feature in dream making is dramatization. 
Curious anachronisms accompany this. Pres- 
ent and past are intermingled, and the here and 
the far are juxtaposea. The absurd things of 
waking life become mocked instead, the proud 
person is given a sceptre, the humble is relig- 

361 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

iously turned into a worm, the teacher who 
"flunked" us is made the fireman in a crema- 
tory, the girl who loved us becomes a superb 
angel. In the informal logic of dreams any- 
thing can be expected to happen, for almost 
anything does happen. We can analyse it after- 
wards, but not settle upon its course in advance. 
The fourth and last feature in dream making 
is regression. The abstract things become con- 
crete, and single attributes appear as things. 
On account of this fact, people have frequently 
been inclined to place large stock in the flying 
vagaries of their sensory content during sleep. 
Indeed armies have been raised to conquer, vast 
sums of money been poured out, deprivation 
endured, — all because some enthusiast with a 
picturesque vocabulary narrated heatedly his 
visitations from the "other world." The "inner 
self" of dreams possesses no such attractiveness 
to the empirical student of psychology as the 
naive mind takes for granted to be the case. 
Dreams typify, and dreams elucidate, but 
dreams are indices of erratic refraction, rather 
than evidences of tangency to another cosmos 
than the one to which we are subservient. 

48. Bodily postures during sleep or bodily 
happenings while we are supine make up a con- 
sideranle amour* of the stimuli to dreams. 

362 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

Tickle the neck of an enthusiastic dreamer, and 
he will be likely to dream of being guillotined 
as not. Drop a little water on his forehead, 
and he will think the club of Herakles is de- 
scending with its usual velocity. Turnings over 
in bed, whether involuntary, or elicited by an 
experimenter, will usually have their effect in 
the dream content; while too much heat of the 
bed-clothes, as well as being uncovered while 
sleeping, will be dramatized into situations of 
burning or freezing. Dreams of flying and fall- 
ing are usually correlated with sexual and anx- 
iety complexes respectively, and so far have 
the students of dreams pursued their analysis, 
that it is but necessary to tell one of them his 
dreams and be psycho-analyzed with care, in 
order that these phenomena be tracked to their 
true stimuli, and in many cases quite eradicated 
from the future sleeping consciousness. 

49. No sketch of the emotional life would 
be complete without some account of the soul. 
This word, I am convinced, has both a reputable 
as well as a vicious signification, and I shall try 
here to separate them. "Psychology without a 
soul" has been the vogue for some years, if not 
decades, and it is the abuse of the term which 
is responsible for this state of affairs. Private 
motives, "moral" reasons, and other traducing 

363 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

factors have long been called into play when 
empirical evidences were lacking; and thus the 
soul, evaporating out of psychology, is men- 
tioned only by a certain few who lay no claim 
to its validity except on the grounds of custom 
and reverence for the past. The notion of the 
soul originated in untutored and uncritical per- 
sons, who were at a loss to explain certain 
phenomena of mental life, as well as in a hurry 
to get names for things. The names, however, 
swallowed up the things, and it took some time 
for this fallacy to be undermined. The dreams 
of the primitive man, his personification of the 
elements and forces of nature, his mysterious 
regard for everything he could not control, and 
similar functions of ignorance, brought out his 
naive beliefs into crystallization, with the re- 
sult that he knew not the difference between 
himself and the rest of nature. When such a 
situation occurs, unknowns are in the majority, 
and the unknowns are taken as the criteria of 
the Knowns. One of the products of such think- 
ing is faith, — a form of scepticism which disbe- 
lieves in the full manifestation of the universe 
at any one time, and is inversely proportional 
to the amount of true knowledge which the 
individual is willing to assimilate. Ideals are 
some of the products of faith, and these, by con- 

364 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

taining an element of uncertainty, — a perpet- 
ually unrealizable end term, — are forms of the 
same scepticism. Religion itself is a theory of 
the soul, as well as a theory of the structure 
of the world, and the place which human activi- 
ties have in it. Of these three, its theory of the 
soul is perhaps the most important, for its meta- 
physics is frequently deduced from its psychol- 
ogisms, while its morality is a function of the 
changing customs of the era in which it flour- 
ishes. I shall offer the following theories of 
the soul, each of which has figured in the past, 
and each of which is as likely to figure in the 
future. 

(a) The soul as glandular secretion. All 
reference to the soul as being in the body is 
connected with some organ of the body in which 
it has its "seat." "The brain is the seat of the 
mind, has sometimes been uttered in rash mo- 
ments; and likewise the heart or the liver or 
the other organs of vegetation have been given 
the honor above specified. There is something 
both reputable and otherwise in this statement, 
for the body is both the center of the individ- 
ual's existence, as well as dependent for its sta- 
bility upon the cardiac, respiratory, alimentary 
and other functions. In all emotional states, 
likewise, there are certain well defined func- 

365 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tions of the ductless glands, such as the supra- 
renal, the thyroid, and the like, causing the 
animal better to endure wounds and heal them 
than otherwise, or at other times. But the dif- 
ficulty with this theory is that it makes physi- 
ological processes fundamental without recog- 
nizing that they are physiological. The emo- 
tions are disorders, signs of abnormality, and 
to make the soul as an emotional state, the 
fundamental thing in human life, is to choose 
the worst and call it the best. That which was 
the obscurest, the least known, the upholders 
of the internal soul have made the cap-stone 
of their belief, a procedure which is to say the 
least of it, fatuous. Psychologizing, or the tak- 
ing of unanalysed psychological data as the 
fundamental thing in logic, or philosophy, or 
ethics, or metaphysics, is the name of the error 
which characterizes all accounts of an internal 
soul or psyche, which inhabits the interior of 
the body. Such a "gaseous vertebrate" as this 
form of soul would have to be, must be the one 
"unmentionable," and therefore reducible to 
zero for psychology. 

(b) The soul as all the functions of the 
body. This theory easily allies itself with the 
doctrine of "self-expression." One is said to 
express himself when he does anything that re- 

366 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

veals his "inner nature." Being able to find no 
satisfactory meaning for these terms, I shall 
have to pass them by. But the doctrine of self- 
expression must turn out to mean that any and 
every act is an expression of a self, and thus 
one has to grade such actions according to some 
other standard, if the expression is to have any 
meaning. That which means everything means 
nothing. Now the soul, as the entire life his- 
tory of the person concerned, or the present 
personality, — manners, habits, acuities, emo- 
tions, memories, and everything one can name 
which the organism is doing, is a notion that 
has so far supplanted the previous one that we 
might consider it the present day tendency in 
souls. 

(c) The soul as a specific organization of 
functions toward a permanent type which con- 
stantly evolves the new and the beneficial. The 
writer holds that this view is the only one so far 
presented which requires a special term to dis- 
tinguish it from mind, personality, or the whole 
of the cross-section. For the whole gamut of 
functions of which we are capable is necessar- 
ily a developmental series, if there is to be de- 
duction and permanency to it. We saw that the 
cross-section is full of incomplete series. At- 
tributes come and go, and parts have a share in 

367 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

many series. Now when a set of functions 
freely operates, and operates time and again, 
there is something more intimate and secure 
about it than when only random sets of opera- 
tions transpire. For example, there is a vast 
difference between the person who always tells 
the truth, and the person who can never be 
calculated to tell it; for in the former there is 
a permanent response to the facts of the case, 
and a lack of inhibitions against the language 
reaction becoming a derivative of that function. 
Not only is there also a vast difference between 
these two persons in point of social or emotional 
rank, uut the former does not have a divided 
consciousness, while the latter has. The former 
has no complexes strong enough to traduce his 
speech, and the result is both a better organ- 
ization of his functions, and a chance to become 
a predictable person, — two things which are 
denied to the other. This is just a passing ex- 
ample, but it will suffice to give the evidence 
why such a person whose consciousness is uni- 
fied should be said to have a soul, rather than 
the person of whom the same things cannot be 
said. 

50. No more than a bare outline of the 
emotional complex can be included in this chap- 
ter, and the student must look for special treat- 

368 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

ments elsewhere. The extent to which com- 
plexes abound, hinder, and split our conscious- 
ness asunder is revealed in almost every situa- 
tion of life. The phobias on which venders of 
patent medicines thrive is but one example. 
Another is the New England conscience, or the 
notion that everything must be interpreted in 
terms of duty. The delusion of "feeling that the 
eye of God is upon one" occurs frequently 
among the slightly insane. The general awak- 
ening to the destructive effect of such fears is 
evidenced in certain moral and religious prop- 
agandas of the past decade, for whatever ab- 
surd metaphysics or cosmology they teach, their 
general stimulus is a recognized need. And yet, 
most moral propagandas are based upon the 
fear of something to a large degree, rather than 
upon the unification of the personality under a 
positive principle of incremental benefits. In 
many a religious code the negative suggestibility 
is assumed, and certain fears are played upon 
in connection with sickness, dying and the like 
predicaments, on the ground that phobia and 
negative instruction are the fundamental mov- 
ers of human activity. 

51. There are certain other matters con- 
nected with emotion and suppression which be- 
long partly in this chapter and partly not in it. 

369 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

These are the items in the cross-section known 
as interest, purpose, and wilt. They are not 
nouns, however, but something else. Interest, I 
take it, is the manifestation of constant motor 
tendencies toward some one special group of 
objects, plus a satisfyingness at their develop- 
ment. But this satisfyingness is not necessarily 
emotional, or, if so, it is considered best as emo- 
tion arising after the results have been achieved. 
The success of the motor disposals toward ob- 
jects is often too much to be assimilated, and, 
in such a case, the disordered state supervenes. 
However, interest may be very quiet and not 
accompanied by glandular secretion or vaso- 
motor constriction. It has normally, the same 
character as feeling-tone, — a readiness to re- 
spond again by virtue of a lack of inhibitory 
tendencies. Curiosity, which enters into inter- 
est, was spoken of as one of the safest instincts, 
and interest is often stimulated by curiosity. A 
person is interested both in that in which he 
says his interests lie, and also in what he does 
most without restraint or forcing. When the 
personality is unified, these two coincide. One 
may be interested in what he groans to be re- 
leased from. Some occupation that is hated, 
some iteration that is disliked, may be the very 
thing he will voluntary return to after being 

370 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

freed. In such a case the interest is certainly 
emotional, and as such is a symptom of dis- 
order. 

52. Purpose is the maintaining of a motor 
pattern in the midst of various environments, 
each equally contributing to its maintenance. 
It includes the element of choice. This choice 
is free, when it operates without hindrance; it 
is not free when it is hindered: it is deter- 
mined when the end to be gained can be gained 
only that way; it is indeterminate when any end 
term is equally suitable. Along with these are 
usually considered intention, or that which one 
is functioning f urtheringly ; and motive, or the 
reason why one furthers it. This "why" is cau- 
sal, it being the chain of events which lead up 
to the intention. Introspective psychology wsl^ 
once said to furnish the means for determining 
all these matters, but it has signally failed. One 
determines them by observing the organism and 
w^hat it is doing in the midst of its various en- 
vironments, and then one asks the doer what 
he is doing, and these two reports are carefully 
compared, and the result balanced. If the doer 
and the sayer conflict in their results, the per- 
sonality is said to be divided; if they agree, he 
is said to be unified, truthful, and predictable. 

53. The will is characterized as the domi- 

371 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

nant purpose in the individual. James has giv- 
en a scheme of the various kinds of wills, — de- 
liberative, explosive, drifting, and the like, — 
which are characterizations of emotional and 
temporal manifestations rather than descrip- 
tions of what the organism is first and foremost 
doing in the midst of its environments. For if 
we but analyse all cases of the will, we find 
that the thing done, the thing willed, is the most 
constant response to that environment of which 
the person is capable. The divided, inconstant 
person alone boasts of the freedom of the will 
that is inside of him. The rest of humanity 
are even now falling into the habit of desiring 
to be predictable. The honesty of the bank- 
ers, lawyers, merchants and other persons of 
the social mele is just this predictability of their 
actions before they are fully functioned. For 
when a person says that he has choice and can 
do whatever he cares to do, it means at the ut- 
most that he can function thus once and once 
only. We are never apprehended by the law 
until we step over the threshold of social peace. 
This threshold may be high one hour and low 
the next, but it is always a definite function of 
the environment and the organism within it. 
Freedom of the will has long been a most un- 
pleasant topic on account of its being talked of 

372 



THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEX 

and never carried out. For the carte blanche 
we each of us hold, — the privilege to do what- 
ever we please, — is not a return ticket from cer- 
tain destinations we could inscribe upon it. And 
those things we say we can do and choose are 
limited by, first, motor possibility, and second, 
by the desirability of the end. And this end, 
unless we are emotionally distorted, is one of 
the terms of a series already started, and not 
something which falleth like the Palladium 
from the blue. 



373 



CHAPTER V. 

MATTERS AND MINDS 

1. In the foregoing pages I have endeav- 
ored to present the nature of the common oper- 
ations going on within a consciousness. Objects 
sensed, objects perceived, objects in an emo- 
tional complication, — these are the three chief 
disposals we make of the various series which 
meet one another to form quotidian things. The 
various series which get thus concatenated are 
the ultimate, neutral entities of the universe. 
When they are considered as being material for 
responses, they are called matters, and when 
they are being responded to, and thus united 
in the with-for relation, they are called minds. 
In other words, minds are what human bodies 
do with matters. Matters include minds, but if 
human beings are to speak in certain ways, the 
two expressions are required out of conveni- 
ence and logic. Whether it is underhanded or 
not, some matters are commanded by way of 
our being obedient to them, while again out of 
such dealings come new matters of an order 
scarcely predictable; for it is hardly likely that 
some things would have had the factual exist- 
ence which they do, had not human activities 

374 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

played upon their elements, and thereby found 
parts and functions possessing significant prop- 
erties of union and mutual furtherance. We ar- 
rive on the planet with an organic structure 
craving food, and clear from the first intake 
of fluid nourishment to the erection of grain 
elevators, the human neural response involved 
is basically the same; embroidered, to be sure, 
by the constructive functions necessitated by the 
vast social environment for and against which 
we strive. Similarly, from the first time we are 
modest and shy, to the adornment of our bodies 
with the smothering regalia of collegiate func- 
tions, the same kernel of impulse dominates the 
situation, and the wholesale manufacture of 
clothes and adornments is the organized social 
structure based upon it. Such a list could be 
wellnigh prolonged indeterminately, but these 
examples wlil suffice to make focal the manner 
in which the dominating responses of the hu- 
man organism not only limit the possibility of 
shattering the orders which now stand solid 
from the mold, but also reach beyond the brief 
present, and control the futurities of most that 
he call "mine" and "yours." 

2. Nevertheless it would be fatuous to 
credit everybody with motives of a furthering 
and permanent character. It is contrary to 

375 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

fact, and hopeless to find. As evidence of the 
truth of this thesis ; let me but cite how unusual 
it is to find a calm mind, or a creative mind, or 
a mind that is truthful, or unshattered by com- 
plexes. How few persons, when they close the 
house door and enter the street and its crowds, 
do not shut the door upon their permanent mo- 
tives! Their environments are largely wooden, 
stone, and wall-paper constructions; and their 
morality depends largely in the lack of an- 
noyances, rather than in the responses to the 
environments of neutral orderliness. Neverthe- 
less, it is quite possible that perceptions of or- 
der may be obtained in the midst of disorder, 
and since this is a matter germane to nothing 
else than psychology, here will be the place to 
outline its development. 

3. One is allowed, it would seem, in dealing 
with those responses called interests, to take a 
broad perspective of the field they cover. Psy- 
chology, as the study of the conscious cross-sec- 
tion, has little need to merely throw its data out 
for inspection, without throwing out for inspec- 
tion as well the possibilities of their organiza- 
tion. And, if I mistake not, one of the requi- 
sites in stating a problem is to do it in such a 
manner that the solution will be hinted at in 
the first formulation. That which disturbs our 

376 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

perceptions is the emotional complex, and the 
first thing to do, if one is to have perceptions of 
order and motor responses of permanence, is 
to get rid of all the complexes he can. Death 
is supposed to do this at one clip, and while 
there are some complexes which are resolved 
only by that event, there also lies within the 
principle of common parts another solution 
which we are at liberty to investigate. The 
word "soul," which in the preceding chapter 
was retained in psychology on good grounds, is 
a word which should be meant to imply a min- 
imum of emotional complexes and a maximum 
of clear perceptual and motor furtherances; 
and it is this business of obtaining a soul, which 
is the present topic under consideration. 

4. In William James' chapter on "The 
Self," he enumerates various selves which come 
and go in consciousness. The material and bod- 
ily selves he makes fundamental, and the self 
of the widest and solidest relations he makes the 
final flowering of neural responses. But the 
"passing thought," which James made "the 
thinker," — the Ego, — is not to be included in 
this present account, however much assistance 
I may have drawn from his pattern of personal- 
ity as outlined in that chapter. At once it can 
be stated that the permanency of the Ego, or 

377 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

self, is the ordinal correlation of the responses 
of the organism to the permanent orders of the 
universe. The "passing thought" of James is 
only the speaking voice, and is over and gone 
as soon as it is uttered. Not that I would claim 
a permanence for the self beyond the rigidest 
empirical evidence, but the "now" of psychology 
is not necessarily that span of time which in- 
cludes the passing thought; for the "now" is as 
long as any permanent interest lasts, and may 
be years as well as minutes. The engineer who 
put the tubes under the East River may have 
planned them for years before they were finally 
laid, and it is so with such constructions that 
the permanence of the idea, and its focality in 
mind is unwavering during the time that the 
individual is functioning and furthering it. I 
should call such an idea the source of person- 
ality, and I should say also that the mind fur- 
thering it was just as permanent as that interest 
which he was developing was permanent. 

5. The self has had a curious history in 
philosophy and psychology. Descartes was the 
first acute thinker to ally it with functional ac- 
tivity, for he decided that the phenomenon of 
inhibition was the fundamental element in a 
consciousness. Since then, less and less has the 
notion of a permanent spirit or spook been the 

378 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

ruling theory of the self. James was the last 
renowned writer to assert that "we were always 
aware of our selves, of our personal existence." 
This book upholds no such non-empirical prin- 
ciple. We are our functions, we are our en- 
vironments, and "consciousness of thus turns 
out to be merely an expression by which we pay 
homage to the tyranny of language. Thus "our 
own personal existence" is a term which is 
quite incomprehensible when applied to any 
other things than bare organic functions, and 
the focality of them in our consciousness. While 
writing this page, I am not aware of my per- 
sonal existence, but of the readers who will re- 
spond to it instead. Fingers, pens, typewriter 
and paper are but the media, — the plan it has 
or lacks, and the receptions it will receive, are 
the things my mind is made of while perform- 
ing this function of publication. Even the per- 
sonal pronoun "I," which is used here from 
time to time, is the vocal instrument of this per- 
manent interest, and used solely on account of 
custom and convenience. 

6. James speaks of the hierarchy of selves, 
and makes the material self, which consists of 
the body, clothes, relatives and property, that 
from which all the rest of the interests originate 
as well as depart. The responses of food-getting, 

379 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

self-display, reproduction and acquisition are 
the elements which enter into this type of con- 
sciousness, and which have to be satisfied be- 
fore anything else can have any show at all. 
Next comes the social self, which is a product 
of gregariousness, and includes the desire to be 
approved, the desire to excel, together with the 
subsequent blames, honors, and satisfactions. 
Following this is the spiritual self, which ap- 
pears to be a certain sentimental attachment 
to one's entire tissue of conscious states. In all 
this there seems to be a w^holesomeness and a 
catholicity of observation which deserves to be 
imitated by all those seeking to do justice to 
the material of psychology. But in his later 
writings James appears to have laid down an- 
other set of principles which, far from contra- 
dicting his earlier ones, enlarges them, and his 
last statements are in almost entire harmony 
with this book. Consciousness, as a separable 
substance of permanent character, he denies to 
the realm of thinkables and existants. The "I 
think," which to most persons means their soul, 
he reduces to the "I breathe," and regards 
consciousness as a function, and not as an ever- 
lasting pronoun. 

7. I cite this much of biogi'aphy in order to 
show that the present development of psychol- 

380 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

ogy runs tangent and not counter to the mat- 
ter of this book, for with what is now known 
in abnormal psychology added to the develop- 
ment of the old-line psychology, we have more 
than either of them could have furnished alone. 
And that more is the principle of the ridding 
ourselves of complexes by vicarious substitu- 
tion of the perplexing object. 

8. Emotional complexes are usually mani- 
fested in fears and inhibitions of a well defined 
character. The situations in which they first 
arose may have been private or public. We 
may have been mistreated or shocked as chil- 
dren, and the recurrence of the situation ever 
kept arousing the same emotions as the orig- 
inal. We responded in a disorderly manner to 
the first disordered situation, and were either 
prevented from resisting it, or thrust more 
deeply into the mire. Thereafter, whenever 
enough of the elements of the original situation 
were present, they summed into a stimulus of 
the same character as the first, and provoked the 
same result. For instance, timidity is usually 
the product of the first few weeks' environ- 
ment, and timidity is a form of fear. It often 
happens, therefore, that the new as well as 
the not-yet-known will provoke the fear re- 
sponse. The child fears dark corners and 

381 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
closets, the young man fears the examination, 
and the old man fears the executors of his will. 
Those who fear usually pre-respond to the sit- 
uation, — commonly called "anticipating trou- 
ble.' Now the prevalence of phobias, of hesi- 
tancies, of emotional anticipations, is too wide 
to need further comment. Once started, it can 
ramify to all situations having common parts 
with the originals. But this business of com- 
mon parts also shows the way out of such a 
fearing consciousness, for by virtue of perceiv- 
ing that the fears do not develop in certain spe- 
cial situations, certain other situations can be 
produced, in which more fearless than fearful 
elements predominate; and thereby this com- 
plex may be signally reduced if not eliminated 
altogether. 

9. Again, the sexual complex, which Walt 
Whitman facetiously calls the "procreant urge 
of the world," is one that frequently dominates 
the organism. Besides being a need of certain 
vitalizing functions within the body, it is con- 
nected with shyness, bashfulness, modesty, the 
wearing of clothes, and many other less obvious 
social embarrassments. Before mating with an- 
other of the species, fanciful idealizations, love 
songs, homages, and various forms of extreme 
politeness, together, perhaps, with dreams and 

382 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

the like phenomena, furnish the only means of 
harmonizing this predicament with the rest of 
one's interests. Our acquaintanceships being at 
the best haphazard, and our friends being those 
persons we have inadvertantly met, (rather 
rather than being chosen from a catalogue, or 
by the mediation of a cosmic duenna), one is 
privileged to call this insurmountable difficulty 
of choosing the best permanent companion, the 
true social evil. But where more than trivial, 
physiological motives are present, and where 
the environment to which one responds in such 
a case is larger than the fanciful passion for 
ownership, the chances are better than other- 
wise that the error of rashness may be abro- 
gated. 

10. Years ago there was established in the 
city of Boston what was known as the Lyceum. 
It was a Greek name, having a flavor of erudi- 
tion and the classical. Before the establish- 
ment of this form of amusement,— -for the Ly- 
ceum was a sort of theatre, — the New England 
conscience would not permit itself to say that 
plays and entertainments should figure in the 
daily or weekly routine. But with the establish- 
ment of the Lyceum, the New England conscious 
was appeased. The bare change of name, with 
the feeling that something solid and honorable 

383 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

was always to take place under its tutelage, suf- 
ficea to release the complex of prejudice against 
the theatre. Those puritanically inclined, hav- 
ing always secretly wished to go to places of 
amusement, (but being vexed with orthophobia, 
or the fear that they had not done right), were 
now permitted to enjoy themselves. For the 
Lyceum was nothing more than a theatre, and 
as such was not quite up to the standard of the 
better theatres of the country. Indeed, some of 
the productions w^ere so much worse than those 
of the regular boards that the Puritans should 
not have been entertained by them. We now 
have a replica of this in the productions of non- 
theatrical entertainers, who furnish amusement 
under what are advertised as "special auspices." 
The modern moving picture shows, which al- 
ways bear the seal of being "passed by the 
board of censorship," are another partial reso- 
lution of the complex against amusements. This 
account is introduced merely to show the way 
popular psychology has attempted to reduce 
certain disharmonies in society, but whether 
they are anything more than lame attempts the 
reader is urged to decide for himself. 

11. Suppressed ideas also take the form 
known commonly as lying. In this case speech 
does not function for the facts of the environ- 

384 



MATTERS AND MINDS 
ment, but rather for the dominant motive which 
is in disharmony with the sensory and percept- 
ual environment. It is the business of ethics 
to decide whether there are justifiable lies, but 
it is the business of psychology to infer the sub- 
sequent harmony or disharmony of any such 
suppression. The effects of this sort of func- 
tioning are cumulative, and the full releasing 
of the complex often demands that one put 
aside dozens of acquaintances and almost iso- 
late himself from all those whom he knows. 
The fund of "conscience money" which now 
amounts to considerable in the Unitea States 
Treasury, is the result of the voluntary release 
of this complex on the part of the contributors 
to that fund. That no publicity attaches to the 
reception of it by the government, is a sign of 
the general increase of sanity. For we are com- 
ing to know that it does not require an emo- 
tional orgy to release an emotional complex 
satisfactorily. The wilful or stubborn child, who 
may become so through the parental environ- 
ment of cruelty or ignorance, soon learns by 
imitation to accomplish his ends by means of 
rendering a false account of his doings. What- 
ever else four-year olds are, they are perceivers 
of suijterfuge and insincerity, and the "strange 
ana unaccountable misbehavior" for which they 

385 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
often get punished is nothing more than the 
naive responses to a false situation. To obvi- 
ate this, a genuine disgust at indiscretions on 
the part of the elders should take the place of 
verbal maltreatment; for unless this happens 
the situation will be one that gets complicated, 
rather than obviated, in the future. This is 
merely a hint as to what can be done under sin- 
cere conditions, for otherwise the sham is more 
obvious than the attempt to conceal it. Of 
course, one must be forewarned in all this by 
the dictum of Socrates, — "Virtue can be taught, 
but there are no teachers." 

12. In certain cases, there is no other way 
to release emotional complexes than by the use 
of emotional situations. A consciousness in 
which only perpetual turmoil exists, — in which 
the complexes are too numerous to be released 
through calm considerations of the larger en- 
vironment habitually refused, — can perhaps be 
resolved into something harmoniously further- 
ing by an emotional explosion of large propor- 
tions. This is one of the things which both 
tears and laughter accomplish. We do not point 
to these as ends, however, but only as second 
class means, for the consciousness that is only 
brow-beaten and humiliated is fit for nothing 
but the milder emotions which usually super- 

386 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

vene. Nevertheless, this form of release is found 
effective, for the release of all complexes is to 
be desired at almost any cost, though it some- 
times becomes a matter of choosing between the 
zero of stability, and the maximum of instabil- 
ity. In the large, there is less clear percep- 
tion than emotion in the common conscious- 
ness, and the predicament thus entailed is obvi- 
ous. I suppose the ethicist would say that what- 
ever enters curatively into such a situation is 
a good, but he is not urged thereupon to de- 
cide. 

Psychology of Value. 
13. The phychology of value enters into 
considerations of the cross-section whenever we 
have dealings with the good, the true, and the 
beautiful. The first concerns the psychology of 
morality, the second the psychology of reason- 
ing, and the third the psychology of art. Val- 
ues are the permanent, non-contradictory sta- 
bilizers of social and personal interests. A value 
is, for psychology, then, the functioning of this 
stability and the satisfaction derived from the 
things thus stabilizing one. A thing is good 
when it stabilizes human relationships with re- 
sulting satisfaction, — in other words when nei- 
ther perceptions, inotor responses, nor feeling 
tones involved are contradictory. A thing is 

387 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

true when it compares with the observations, 
when it is not functionally opposed to the state- 
ments one would make in which those same ob- 
servations could not figure, and when it can be 
shared with other observers and makers of 
statements. The psychology of this is contained 
in the perception of the facts entailed in the 
statements, and in the naming and arranging 
them in a connected discourse. Something is 
beautiful when it produces a harmonious state 
of mind. The criterion here is, however, the 
harmonious state in minds which are not rid- 
dled with emotions. Beauty can be measured. 
The structure of paintings, symphonies, came- 
os, pottery, is open to any investigator, and 
their order, which is the kernel of beauty, is 
amenable even to yard-sticks, and the machin- 
ery of physics. The psychology of beauty is the 
correlation between the balanced bodily state 
and the balance and order in the beautiful ob- 
ject. Now all these in slight detail. 

14. If one asks how permanent a value 
must be, in order for it to be a cardinal value, 
no answer is obtainable from a psychologist. He 
is solely concerned with the continuance of the 
functioning of this more or less permanent 
thing on the part of the organism which is his 
study. It can be functioned for a fraction of 

388 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

a second, or for a lifetime. Indeed, some of 
the functioning in this manner is but analogous 
to after-images, — the existence of the value as a 
content of consciousness having ceased. Thus 
old customs and discarded slogans, to which 
many persons still attach a huge significance, 
are but functional after-images of stimuli which 
have evaporated. They are, then, only eccen- 
trically referred to an environment which, on 
the basis of emotion, has common parts with the 
residual functioning. 

15. Morality is the realm of goodness, and 
the psychology of it is concerned with the per- 
ception and motor functioning of the stabilizers 
of society, whatever these may be. Instinctive 
and emotional actions, the ubiquitous crowd, 
the functioning of more interests than can be all 
at one time furthered, brings us either to the 
perception of order and plan, or to the brink 
of unsettledness and hesitancy. So that the good 
thing is either that which stabilizes before any 
disorder occurs, or which stabilizes afterwards. 
The words of Aristotle, "virtue is not virtue un- 
til it becomes pleasant," may be said to apply 
to the first case; while any response to an S. O. 
S. signal would be gruel for the second. In 
either case, the maintenance of an unbaffled in- 
terest, stable enough to tide one over the next 

389 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
period of indecision, would have to be called 
one of the items in the psychology of morality. 
1 he selection of a dominating interest would be 
another item. The perception of its poss. 
lies, its history, its likelihood of getting perma- 
nently functioned by the organism, would come 
in as the rational elements of the choice. Then 
the testing it out with all sorts of conditions op- 
erating, the acceptance of it with intentional en- 
thusiasm, with intentional scepticism, and with 
intentional neutrality, — in order to obtain a bal- 
ance, — all these enter in to the psychology of 
settling the problems of morality. And while 
this is but a sketch of the matter, it must suf- 
fice. 

16. Truth is a hard matter to get taken se- 
riously in this century, chiefly because it has 
been taken too seriously heretofore. It is now 
generally conceded that the difficulty was sole- 
ly of language, — we were asking what truth 
was instead of asking what was true. It is thus 
with most of the old, large "mouth-filling 
words" which modern logic so closely scruti- 
nizes. Capital letters cannot make nouns out of 
casual adjectives and adverbs. We ask, then, 
what is the psychology involved in finding a 
true statement, rather than in finding out what 
is capital "T" Truth. Now the significant item 

390 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

to be considered at this point is, that we do 
not start to "think" logically, but only with the 
informal logic of scattered ideas. The pattern 
may be there, but the set terms that can be gen- 
erally understood, as well as the fixed expres- 
sions which are to embody them, are not what 
we get in the first functioning of the material 
of logic. The whole process can be well com- 
pared with that of distillation. The crude stuff 
is the mass of ideas with which any formulation 
starts out. Then comes the linguistic expres- 
sion, or the first thing refined out of the viscous 
mass. But this is frequently too individual, too 
private. It must be laid aside to cool, then 
taken up again, and redistilled, and spoken, 
then oriented among those terms in which it is 
to be embedded, scrutinized as to common 
parts, common functions, special importance in 
that environment, and so on, after which it is 
ready for publicity. This is the work of words, 
whose meanings lie in what others will do upon 
their being singly or serially uttered. Logic is 
not a study of how we think, but a study of the 
responses that a certain pattern of words will 
get in a certain environment. If one wishes to 
be understood, he speaks thus and so. Only 
when words are in such and such a pattern, will 
they be understood as meaning this and not 

391 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

that; one must speak clearly if he wishes to be 
understandable. These are the elements of the 
psychology of logic, and logic has validity only 
after such a thing is accomplished. Any psych- 
ologist can tell us how he thinks. Random, in- 
choate, tattered terms or ideas are the first step. 
Anything whatever in the way of an idea will 
start it, — there is no one, identical, invariable 
may in which we start every logical utterance. 
For patterns that will do in logic are empirical- 
ly tried and disposed of in one way or another, 
and not cooked up in some dark mental abysm 
perpetually veiled so that none can enter and 
peer about it. Logic has nothing to do with 
how we think. Logic has only to do with how 
clearly and unequivocally we speak. The 
psychology of language is the closest field to 
logic, and thus the psychology of speech con- 
cerns the question of functioning one of the 
dominant motives in consciousness at the time, 
whether it be focal or sub-focal. For what the 
logicians, who have tried to describe the way 
we think, are after, is the vain goal of contents 
in the sub-conscious, — things which do not ex- 
ist. 

17. The term "reason" and its derivatives 
have been used more often with a psychological 
import than with a logical one. "He acts rea- 

392 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

sonably," "it stands to reason," "rational 
thought," and similar expressions, do not always 
mean something logical. They more often re- 
fer to the connectedness, or the easily flowing 
character of the thing mentioned in that con- 
text. Coincidence is taken for intention, — a 
factor which is psychological rather than any- 
thing else. Now reason is not so much a noun, 
as it is a term which refers to the pattern of 
the expression that is used to convey a meaning. 
When judgments coincide in their salient fea- 
ture, there is said to be a case of reason. Again, 
where one can start a chain of expressions, — 
none of which need to be bristling with common 
parts of each other, but which all together make 
a system, — whence something can be further 
implied or inferred, there is said to be ration- 
ality in the connection. Judgments, on which 
these connections depend, are terms in relation, 
implying classification among terms, or correla- 
tion with relations or functions. The logical 
mind is the one which judges, tests, and form- 
ulates the position of one term within a con- 
text of other terms; tries every functional con- 
nection it has with all the terms of the series 
implied, and concludes, not that something must 
be true, but that some expression has been 
found in which every term is satified, and every 

393 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

term of which can be exhibited. But logic is 
also concerned with any and all statements, 
true, false and absurd. "And thrice he slew the 
slain," is just as good an expression in logic as 
"And 3/4 he slew the slain," or "And 3.14159 he 
slew the slain." For the question of how often 
the slain can be slain, is a question for the logic 
and psychology of slaughter. When this is de- 
cided, if there is anything left of the statement, 
then logic can again take it up and decide its 
status. But slaying is not logic, — slaying is mo- 
tor reduction of splanchnic incoherence, — and 
thus logic is the arbiter of the formulation of 
expressions, and not of the source of them. 

18. From the foregoing it can be seen that 
there may well be certain expressions which 
have nothing logical in them, even though the 
same expressions may be effectual for motor 
arousals. Take the case of a patriotic oration 
which bestirs its hearers to deeds of valor and 
sacrifice. The verbal contents of the oration 
may be, and indeed, nearly always are, abso- 
lutely meaningless, insofar as strict logical an- 
alysis is concerned. Again, every national an- 
them, if reduced to prose, and tested by defini- 
tion, is found to be incoherent. I need not re- 
count favorite slogans or shibboleths in detail, 
but if one is interested in strict logic, let him 

394 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

examine the so-called "famous expressions of 
great [or excited] men," and he will see that 
many things which have proved "pragmatic" 
or effectual, are verbal responses to disorder, 
and nothing else. That they have moved sects 
or nations to attain certain ends, is not the 
point; the point is whether they have been 
worthy of the motivating influence they have 
had, for, as they stand crystallized into words, 
they deceive us. In every text-book of logic 
there are enumerated certain "fallacies," or in- 
correct ways of formulating one's statements, 
and these fallacies are all reducible to either in- 
coordinate or absurd speech. The emotional 
complex in the "fallacy of ad hominem/' the in- 
coordination of perceptions in the "fallacy of 
non sequitiir," the emotionalized pre-perception 
in the "fallacy of petitio principii," are more 
psychological than logical fallacies, since they 
have their roots in the primary functions of re- 
sponse. The strictly logical fallacies, on the 
other hand, are those which involve the resort- 
ing of data, and concern inexact formulation. 

19. We must now briefly consider several 
forms of art, and take stock of the chief psy- 
chological elements therein. Arts are of two 
kinds, — the time, and the space arts. Of the 
first, we usually enumerate poetry and music as 

395 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

the chief examples; while of the second, paint- 
ing, sculpture, and architecture are the most 
prominent. It is interesting to note that a 
"time" art is one that chiefly concerns hearing; 
while a "space" art concerns sight. The latter 
class also depends more upon the motor mani- 
festations of the hands than does the former, 
though this dependence is not exclusive. 

20. Poetry is defined as rhythmical words. 
This does not mean that the words need have 
a connected meaning. Rhythms are sets of im- 
pulses which have a pattern, exhibiting con- 
trast effects correlated with organic impulses. 
A rhythm differs from a bare repetition in that 
it exhibits grouping. 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 time in music 
or poetry means, that the first note of the bar 
gets the only voluntary accent, the rest being 
functioned on the momentum of that one. No 
such momentum appears in a bare succession, 
and such a succession we call monotonnous. 
Professor Muensterberg calls monotony any 
"succession that is hated," but such a definition 
does not exhaust it. For the monotonous is pri- 
marily that form of succession which fails to 
save energy in the organic responses we give to 
it, and thus it becomes irksome. Gummy bear- 
ings in machinery, and monotonies in succes- 



396 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

sions of impulses are more than analogically 
related. 

21. Poetry is characterized by something 
further than rhythmical language, however. The 
choice of fine-sounding words is of great im- 
portance. Only certain words will produce a 
poetic effect, by which we mean specifically a 
mood-complex, plus a rhythm. Now moods are 
co-conscious arousals of smouldering emotions, 
and thus poetry is not designed to effect a full 
focality of the idea involved in it, but rather to 
arouse a consciousness sympathetic to the com- 
plexes of the poet. Poetic words are thus not 
noted for their clarity, directness or specificity; 
they are musical elements, and not information- 
al. Further than that, the motor elements of 
the recitation, and the listening to poetry both 
evidence to what a large extent the co-conscious 
enters into art. My own investigations in poetry 
have led me to state that "euphony" is reduci- 
ble to "eu-kinaesthesis," — any sound whatever 
being pleasant, whose utterance does not bring 
into focality the mouth movements of the one 
speaking it. One more fact in respect to the 
words in poetry: we often are enabled to read 
some works in a foreign language and get the 
idea of them without being able to tell exactly, 
word for word, what it differentiatedly means. 

397 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

This is due to the co-conscious arousal of the 
mood by means of sounds alone, and the rest 
follows readily after; for just so long as the 
tones of the stimuli further the pattern once 
started, so long will the sufficient half-hints of 
meaning come, summate, and satisfy. 

22. Rhyme and alliteration are musical ele- 
ments. They perpetuate a tonal focality, while 
they also produce a non-focality of concrete dis- 
course. If one repeats any word over and over 
again, and watches how the meaning slowly 
evaporates the while, until only the sounds re- 
main, he win have demonstrated the essential 
element of rhyme and alliteration. The pattern 
of rhyme having once become established, and 
the mood firmly fixed in the reader, almost any 
combination of words may get taken for its 
face value. Now the point to be stressed in all 
this is that poetry is not originally clear as to 
its meaning, and so whenever rhymes need to 
be completed, or rhythms filled in, the poet is 
not beyond the temptation of completing and 
filling in with whatever material he has at hand 
that will not interrupt the mood. Art of this 
form, in that it uses words, must be said to abuse 
them from the standpoint of logic, whenever 
such a sacrifice of sense to sound takes place. 
Ultimate judgment, however, is based upon the 

398 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

intention, plan, and effect of the poetic mate- 
rial; and the what, how, and w^hy of these is 
just as determinable by those not carried away 
by the poetry as much as by those who are. 

23. The basic psychological elements in 
music are those of tone and rhythm. By not 
employing words, music is a purer form of art 
than is poetry, since it requires no reference be- 
yond itself for its means or ends. Now melo- 
dies are rhythms in the sense of possessing pat- 
tern. "The melody goes of itself," we some- 
times say, and by that phrase we mean that only 
the first impulse needs our undivided attention, 
after which the rest follows as a sort of mo- 
mentum. Another point to be noted is that mel- 
odies are affected by tonality in a way not de- 
ducible from the original presentation of them 
in one key. Certain musical compositions lose 
all their "character" if played in a strange ton- 
ality; even the composer Schubert was once en- 
tirely deceived as to the source of one of his 
own "Lieder" by this means. For dramatic ef- 
fect, nevertheless, a composer often changes key 
without changing the melody; and canonic and 
contrapuntal forms abound in similar features. 
Such a procedure effects the organic accom- 
paniments of music to such a large degree, that 
the lack of doubled intensity with doubled 

399 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
parts is often counteracted by this means. Har- 
monization of a melody is actually the accom- 
paniment of one melody by other melodies, so 
that in listening to a rich harmony we are focal 
to but one or two of the melodies then operat- 
ing, and CO-, or even sub-conscious to the others. 
It is upon this that the mood-character of most 
music depends. 

24. One form of musical composition, 
known as "program music" attempts to be ono- 
matopoetic. In such music there are melodic 
structures which are planned ahead for the ef- 
fect they will produce, and labeled by the com- 
poser, furthermore, as such. Certain instru- 
ments lend themselves very well to these things, 
and "storms," "pastoral scenes," "military 
events," and the like, are quite more than sym- 
bolized in this manner. Recently, however, 
(since 1840), there have been schools of com- 
posers who have attempted to portray anything 
at all by means of orchestral tone-color. That 
is, they have endeavored to equate musical 
phrases with poetic speeches. I cite this fact 
here particularly to show that art forms are not 
all developed out of the spontaneous moods of 
the artist, but can often be the result of deliber- 
ate intentions. For, while music may not be en- 
tirely reducible to physics and physiology, yet, 

400 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

if one physically studies a rhythm, and sees 
what it is composed of, he may, if he is astute 
enough, deduce a "new" form from it, which 
has value in art. But it is safe to say that the 
series of art forms which get constantly devel- 
oped, are asymmetrical, and single, linear ones, 
rather than bi-dimensional. They arise, uncon- 
sciously, from moods, and suddenly, rather than 
from plotting and planning. I do not think it 
rash, therefore, to say that the art that survives 
is a derivative of the co-conscious and the sub- 
conscious, and not something that came when 
bidden. 

25. One word on the psychology of song. 
When a composer plans to set words to music, 
or music to words, as is sometimes done, there is 
often plainly manifest a marked discrepancy 
between them, if exhibited independently. For 
while a set of stanzas, for example, changes its 
subject matter, grammatical form, and signifi- 
cant punctuation, so far as correlating each line 
in every stanza is concerned, the music which 
usually goes with it is uniform for them all. 
As a result, there are discrepancies which must 
not reach the threshold of focality, for if they 
do, the harmonious state of mind will be upset, 
and the art commence to evaporate. For art 
and beauty are present by virtue of their con- 

401 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tributing elements, and when the elements are 
disturbed, the beauty is not there, — it ceases to 
be. If any one asks where it goes, the answer 
is that its position is implicit in the complex, 
and when this has no coherence, the beauty 
ceases. It does not go, not being in the dimen- 
sion of things that travel, — art being another in- 
stance of "only when," — and not a case of some- 
thing mysterious and hidden. Even in a famous 
song, the beauty present is present by virtue of 
there being a preponderance of co-consciously 
functioned pattern, despite the inevitable lack 
of co-ordination between the grammatical ele- 
ments and the rhythms of the music. On the 
other hand, the sentimental and so-called "fa- 
vorite" songs are examples of crowd conscious- 
ness, and their incoherent character points to 
something in their origin which cannot be art. 
In such a case, moreover, one can correlate the 
musical preferences of the organism with its 
preference for something that merely super- 
ficially satisfies. For the popular notion that 
music must make one weep in order for it to 
be choice, has many common parts with serious 
abnormalities. 

26. In connection with the space arts, let 
us only consider what is meant by an artistic 
space, or beauty in the visual content. Con- 

402 



MATTERS AND MINDS 
sciousness being one with its object, one is per- 
mitted to speak not only of "a musical song," 
or "a musical performer," but "a musical con- 
sciousness" as well. It is the same with the 
other arts. We beautify a room, for instance, 
and this operation consists in making the space 
relations between the objects harmonize. Thus 
far, simple enough; and language here prom- 
ises much. But what is the beautifying of a 
room, or the harmonization of spaces? Omit- 
ting the norm, for the time being, let us say 
that the harmonious state of mind which is the 
goal of art, is the presentation of objects in such 
a way that (a) the center of reference will not 
be the observer, but the observed instead. In- 
deed, loss of self -consciousness is exactly what 
this means. The art object, to be brief, cannot 
be felt to be owned while it is felt to be beauti- 
ful. It is not "mine," nor "yours," nor "ours," 
but, if the rhetoric be permissible, we are its. 
(b) In the presence of such an object there will 
be no motor tendencies to do anything more 
than to preserve the situation in its original 
form. And (c) there will be a release of com- 
plexes in the presence of the situation, so that 
the latent-period of beauty, upon future presen- 
tations, will be shortened. Now in beautifying 
space, it is necessary that the fewest possible 

403 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
motor tendencies which disturb the equilibrium 
be present, and one of the ways this is accom- 
plished is by balance and symmetry. Here again, 
something "new" enters in. Any figure, the less 
extended it is the better, but no matter how 
ungainly it is alone, will, if doubled on one 
of its axes, produce an effect of balance. Bal- 
ance on the horizontal and vertical axis, never- 
theless, will produce the most satisfying effect, 
and in many cases we can discover a threshold 
of harmony even here. For when a figure is 
doubled, there are balanced tendencies in the 
motor elements of vision, and through these the 
gateway to non-personal reference is reached. 

27. Thus one factor in the beautifying of 
space is exhibited. Rhythms of space also serve 
the same effect. Rhythms of sound are in time, 
and as such cannot be exhibited all at once; 
while space-rhythm is presto in character, and 
the effects are those of fusion and summation, 
rather than of serial order in time, and sensa- 
tional continuity. There is also another differ- 
ence between these two types of rhythm. A row 
of columns in rhythm may contain far more 
members than a series of notes in music, and 
still be grasped in a pattern. For the most notes 
we ever grasp as a unit are five, or at the ut- 
most six ; while we may get rhythm out of twen- 

404 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

ty columns, which in space are presented at 
once. Rhythms are not only possible in pillars 
of the same length, but are equally elicited from 
unequal lengths. The receding into space of 
the more distant columns toward a point not 
specifically indicated in the scheme, produces 
co-conscious elements which balance the filled 
with the unfilled space. Such co-conscious ele- 
ments appear also in the framing of pictures, 
where the mathematical center of the canvas is 
not the center of the color and shape masses 
balanced within it. Indeed, for these two cen- 
ters to coincide is atrocious. 

28. Colors will balance as well as will fig- 
ures. A small, dark color mass at one side of 
a picture can be brought into balance with a 
very much spread-out color mass on the oppo- 
site side, — intensities here functioning the ef- 
fect. Needless to say, all of the attributes of 
sensation are elements in all forms of art, and 
their varied exhibitions often produce effects 
of surprising newness. Indeed, centering seems 
to be most subtle of all the artist's nuances, and 
by the varied framing of certain pictures, ex- 
ceedingly varied balances and instabilities may 
be obtained. So unlimited is the color reser- 
voir, and so delicate is the threshold of effects, 
that, if one asks whether there are any exhaust- 

405 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
ibles in art, the answer is in the negative. And 
be it finally noted, that the creative interest is 
largely co-conscious. Just as we have men- 
tioned the fact that we know our voluntary acts 
only after they have occurred, so we know that 
we have created, or put together things to make 
a beautiful object, only after the plastic mate- 
rials have left our hands for crystallization. As 
with the case of revising ideas for the printed 
page, so we find in art that our hands or voices 
have bettered our original plan; and this bet- 
tering is not accomplished except by non-self- 
consciousness, — that is, it is only attained by 
responding without personal reference to the 
stimulus. 

29. Some passing mention must now be 
made of the psychology of the business world. 
Such things as advertising and selling imply the 
material self. Advertisements therefore exhib- 
it permanent needs in such a manner that the 
readers of them will be induced to purchase. 
This implies more than mere interest or curi- 
osity. It implies that motor manifestations shall 
transpire, with the result that the object shall 
be bought, and this requires that the operations 
of purchasing shall become focal. To bring this 
about, the feeling of one's lack must inhibit the 
wish to retain what one has already gotten, and 

406 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

this is the central factor in selling. Be it said, 
however, that psychology may be used either to 
protect the unwilling buyer or to further the 
aims of the man selling a useless article. Any 
matter engaging the social self is psychology: 
whether we enter a store willing to buy any- 
thing that attracts us, or whether we go deter- 
mined to have nothing but the one small arti- 
cle that is in instant need, — these and all inter- 
mediate cases are examples of some feature in 
psychology, and our failure to recognize it as 
such is not complimentary. It may, however, 
not be systematic psychology, but only the 
psychology of inarticulate thinking; but even 
so, it follows all the laws which pertain to that 
special domain. The psychologist cannot, 
therefore, tell you in advance what will be a 
good advertisement, for that is determined only 
after the advertisement has brought business, 
and not before. But the psychologist can tell 
you why it was a good advertisement, for every- 
thing is equalW analysable. It is thus seen that 
analysis and deduction are not necessarily func- 
tioned by the same protoplasm with equal or 
comparable success. 

30. Selling is argumenta ad hominein. 
Business, while in general devised to supply 
personal and public needs, is yet so crowded 

407 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

by competition that profits become functions of 
needless accessories. Very little of the profes- 
sional selling is addressed to persons who act- 
ually need the article. But the desire to have 
as much as others have, or to have better than 
others have, or to be the only one within a wide 
radius who possesses this or that prized article, 
is that which makes the salesman flourish. 
There is a literature today on advertising and 
selling, which unfortunately goes by the name 
"psychological," and which once promised to 
bankrupt everybody for the sake of the mer- 
chant. This literature is, fortunately, becoming 
decadent, for the reason that the general in- 
crease of appeals for sales has inhibited itself, — 
too much advertising, and too many "below 
cost" sales look suspicious. There is no need 
for letters six feet high for persons who still 
have to examine their change to see if they have 
lost any. Even at the present date, also, a well- 
known psychologist, and a gifted writer to boot, 
is preparing a book for the general public on 
"How to evade the salesman," or "How to see 
through the fallacy of advertisements," or some 
such title, and so the tide, even of psychology, 
is setting in against the inflated world of un- 
necessary buying and selling. 

31. There is another matter in connection 
408 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

with the psychology of business which is some- 
what in the balance today, in spite of the recog- 
nition of it as worthy and desirable. I refer to 
the so called "efficiency" work which such men 
as Taylor and Gilbreth have made almost na- 
tional institutions. Efficiency work is time-, and 
motion-saving, — two things which very greatly 
interest the business man. It arose from the 
pressure which the labor unions brought to bear 
upon the large manufacturer, for, to the con- 
stantly decreasing hours of work, the utmost 
output is necessarily conjoined. It is as if the 
capitalist had said, "All right, work as short 
hours as you please, but you must work in the 
strictest pattern so long as you do work." And 
thus we have our motion studies, and our sci- 
entific management which eliminate the unfit by 
machinery. The psychological effect on the 
worker is various. In the first place, his mo- 
tions are studied, and he is made to perform rig- 
idly identical tasks, rather than random ones. 
He is thus perfected in the small thing he does 
rather than introduced to the whole pattern of 
the work he is furthering. Only time can show 
the full results of this, for while it seems to 
some to make him a mere machine, to others it 
seems to give him the satisfaction of becoming 
a specialist. In the second place, the condi- 

409 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 
tions under which he works are studied by spe- 
cialists who know much more than does he as 
to what are the best conditions under which he 
he becomes most productive, (regardless of 
whether he "likes" the improvement or not). 
Moreover, some of his thinking is done for him 
better than he could do it alone. Our modern 
factories, no matter how much they may be said 
to crush the "soul" of the worker, are far clean- 
lier and healthier than the workmen would 
have ever evolved alone, if left to think out im- 
provements in after-hours, or while they were 
wasting motions and time. And lastly, the eco- 
nomic conditions w^hich have made the modern 
factory what it is are evolutions, for the psychol- 
ogy of the crowd, as well as the psychology of 
general business have crystallized into this pres- 
ent form, and it is only due to the manners and 
minds of men that either the good or bad con- 
ditions of the present exist. 

32. There are many other instances of 
psychology in every day affairs which could 
only have a smattering treatment in such an 
account as this. And so we shall omit them. 
Be it remembered, however, that whatever is 
human response to environment is material for 
psychology. He who has analytic insight will 
carry with him into every situation he meets, 

410 



MATTERS AND MINDS 

the ability to sort the data and see the trend 
of affairs, especially if he will add to that in- 
sight the knowledge afforded by a study of the 
science of psychology. That it is a science, one 
cannot safely deny. The only difference be- 
tween it and the so-called physical and mathe- 
matical sciences is, that there are more insta- 
ble variables in it than in the others. One can 
know the human mind as well as he can know 
the reactions of bases and acids, but he cannot 
predict human minds unless they are patterned 
in such a way as to plot a series with very few 
lost members. In this connection, let it be ad- 
mitted that we are close to the realm of value, 
for when one becomes predictable, he functions 
the permanent, and in so doing gets a logical 
consciousness. Otherwise, of course, one is pre- 
dictable only in the sense that he is independ- 
able, a case which also hints of value in the neg- 
ative sense. In this sense, psychology is a nar- 
row strip of existence, and as such seems cu- 
riously enigmatical until one learns to relax 
and allow it merely to be exhibited to him with- 
out a qualm. For all our knowledge is in the 
conscious cross-section, and this fact makes up 
for any apparent heterogeneity among those se- 
ries we find in strict psychology to be unexpect- 
edly prime to each other. For as we but func- 

411 



THE CONSCIOUS CROSS-SECTION 

tion the universe, and nothing else, all that is 
complete, incomplete, valuable and valueless, 
as well as permanent and non-permanent is pri- 
marily of non-personal reference, and exists in- 
dependently of us, except insofar as it becomes 
content of consciousness. And knowing, or 
functioning, or mentioning any matter neither 
creates it nor alters its power or being. 



412 



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